but I do agree that the financial system has been mismanaged by the owners, abused by the owners, and some stipulations ignored by the majority of owners.
The end result of a lock-out/strike will benefit the owner, and the fans will see no difference, no benefit to the outcome of events.

I understand they entered a business to make money, and not necessarily win championships. I know it’s hard to feel bad for players as they’re all overpaid. But the truth is; it’s awfully hard to side with the owners when they’re the ones that made the mistakes leading up to the pending hate-fest. How is their ‘recent’ proposal not like a bail-out.

Jersey costs won’t decrease. Ticket prices won’t decrease. Parking costs won’t decrease. Concessions won’t decrease. They’ll still ask for new stadiums.
The league won’t contract. The overall quality of play will not improve. There will still be no punishment for ‘tanking’. There is no punishment for mismanaging a franchise.
Lower level players’ contracts will decrease, total players salaries will decrease, however the top 5% of players be less affected.

All-in-all, the most guilty party is the one that doesn’t get the shaft.

Simply put, that doesn’t sit well with me. I think I’m going on a sports attendance strike. I’ll still watch on TV. I’ll still watch when I go to the bar. But I’m no longer directly paying for the man to continually screw me over as a fan. No more tickets. No more parking. No more concessions. No jerseys. No memorabilia. I know that’s a net zero impact. I know I have less of a right to complain about the team if I am not directly supporting them.

The saddest thing is; the owners will never get how the fan feels until all fans stop showing up.
That won’t happen.

I mean, I don’t see the need to change the playoff structure, and I don’t think an NBA version of the NIT tournament is going to get anyone excited. I kind of like his idea about putting every team that doesn’t make the playoffs into the lottery, but he acts as if tanking just started a couple years ago. The NBA is the only league in the world where you can identify an amateur talent and have a reasonable expectation that the one singular talent can transform your franchise (Lebron, Shaq, Duncan, etc.). It has gotten more pub recently, but teams tanking has been around for awhile. And this idea that the NBA only has these chronically struggling franchises is false. Any Cubs, Royals or Devil Ray fan can tell you that. I mean, I can say with 99% certainty that the Red Sox and Yankees will both make the playoffs and one will win the AL East. How much hope do the Cleveland Browns, Bengals or Detroit Lions have? The NBA has a problem with parody but I don’t see how anything Simmons suggested can make a difference. There will always be bad front offices. Someone has to lose.

I think Doug Thonus does a much better job (like 10x better) of breaking down the NBA salary issues on his bullsbeat podcast at bullspodcasters.com and offering up some good ideas of what could be done to improve the system. I actually felt smarter after listening to him rather than just confused while reading Simmons.

http://www.bullspodcasters.com/