NBPA Rumors
The 2017-18 season is over for the Utah Jazz, but the awards and accolades continue to pile in for rookie guard Donovan Mitchell. After being unanimously selected for the All-Rookie First Team, the National Basketball Players Association has now picked Mitchell for the Leader of the New School Award.
Liz Mullen: The NBA Players union @TheNBPA will announce its Players’ Voice awards next Wednesday on social media. pic.twitter.com/UMnQeB7x9I
Liz Mullen: . @TheNBPA will have some new player awards, including the “NBPA People’s Champ Award, designed to honor the player who best uses his platform to positively impact society.” Full list of award categories: pic.twitter.com/lGy7X5mWf4
“I want to stress the importance of our main goal. That this an association that will be led by the players. They will determine the course and who will be the president,” he added. “The NBPA is doing a very good job for many decades. The good thing is that I personally have a very relationship with them. They are very supportive of what we are trying to do here. And I think they will be supportive not only on a personal level but also as an organization to organization,” Nachbar answered when asked if there is any model to be followed like the NBPA. “I can say that they are looking forward to having a full-time partner on the other side of the ocean because there are many EuroLeague players going to the NBA and from the NBA to EuroLeague. Obviously, they are far more ahead but having their support is very important for us.”
Q: Will the players get a cut? Brian Windhorst: Absolutely. Sponsorships fall under basketball-related income (BRI), and the players get 50 percent of that money. Also, in the recent collective bargaining agreement (CBA), the union negotiated that income from gambling falls under BRI and will be shared with the players. This is the new vein of revenue for the league. Q: What impact will that have on the salary cap? And when? Brian Windhorst: After a modest increase in the cap this season, the NBA is projecting the salary cap to inflate by $7 million in 2019. The league hasn’t explained the reason, but some of that projection might include some anticipated new gambling-related revenue. It will probably take a year or two for states to get operations fully up and running before possible ancillary money flows to the NBA.
Q: What is the league doing to protect the integrity of the game? Brian Windhorst: The league already hires firms to monitor all legal betting across the globe. I’ve personally seen the operations at one of them — Sportradar, in London — and it’s impressive. It has busted match-fixing in many sports. Of course, these firms can’t monitor illegal betting, which is why moving this to a legal framework is better for everyone. But the league is pushing for regulations in all states, such as banning certain prop bets that could be easy to manipulate. For example, who gets called for the first foul in a game is somewhat ripe for exploitation, so the league wouldn’t want to allow bets like that. For other in-game wagers — like, say, who will score the next basket — the league has sought to keep relatively low limits on the size of those bets to fight the temptation for corruption. It’s hard to try to buy off a player making millions if the most anyone can spend on a prop bet is $100.
