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THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
WEDNESDAY JULY 6,2011
PAGE 23
LOCKOUT CONTINUED | 21
the top five highest paid players in the NBA.
This would be an appropriate time to laugh.
Now, sports fans all over the globe must listen to multi-millionaires sit around a table and argue about who is going to get the bigger piece of a very lucrative pie. If and when the two sides come to an agreement, it's hard to tell who will even care about their product anymore.
It is clear that the owners hold the cards, mostly due to the fact that they own the most money. David Stern has gotten punked in the last two collective bargaining
agreements, seeing as the players have been receiving 53-percent of the income.
Here's what to look for: the days of six-year contracts are over. The majority of contracts will lie in the two or three year range with the chosen few getting that fourth year. Contracts that are still on the book will probably be scaled back around 20-percent meaning instead of making $30 million in three years, Kobe is only going to get $24 million. Oh the injustice!
The biggest toss-up is what will happen to the salary cap. Will it stay soft? Or will the owners message the thought so intensely that the only logical thing is to make it hard? All I know is, by the end of
the summer someone is getting screwed.
With the two sides being billions of dollars apart, it seems as though we are inevitably headed towards a painfully lengthy bargaining session that could cost the fans their entire 2012 season, and whenever the NBA does return, it will take on a substantial face-lift that will be impossible not to notice.
I hereby declare this the Summer of the Lockouts, and yes, I'll wake you when it's over.
San Francisco 49ers left guard Mike lupati leaves a closed informal minicamp during the NFL football lockout at San Jose State University in San Jose, Calif., June 28.
Paul Sakuma/ASSOCIATED PRESS
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