Questions, questions and more questions

So many questions...


The Boston Globe is asking a "Huge Question" on what the real value of Albert Haynesworth is? A great quote from Bill Belichick in that piece on why they took on the troubled player:

“I think we can look at every player, every person in this room’s past, and find something that was a mistake and is less than ideal - on any team, in any group of people. We’ve all made mistakes."

Haynesworth has not had a Full-Pad practice let alone played a down for the Patriots, and the Herald asking an even bolder question: If Haynesworth is convicted of groping a Washington, D.C., cocktail waitress and gets the max, will it be 6 months before he even has a chance to don #92?



Delonte "@CharleeRedz13" West is asking a question too, if Home Depot is hiring?

Delonte's wasn't stopping with his twitter update, maybe he should've, but the follow up was just as quoteworthy:

“I actually might have work with Sam’s [Club], BJ’s, selling knives. That’s pretty cool too. I get a microphone and everything. “You gotta get with it, do something that you love. I’m an architect, I was an art major. At Home Depot, I get free discount on hammers and nails.”

A guy with weapons charges stemming from carrying a Bowie Knife, a Beretta 9mm handgun, a Ruger .357 magnum handgun, and a Remington 870 shotgun probably shouldn't be joking about selling knives while still under probation.



Finally, Malcolm Gladwell asks what are the "Psychic Benefits" of the NBA Lockout for the Owners? This is a really good read and not just for his blasting of Tom Yawkey's unforgivable racism ("Yawkey was not just a racist, in other words. He was a racist who put his hatred of black people ahead of his desire to make money.").

Here are a few of the points made by Gladwell:

• Since 2000, there have been eight basketball stadiums either built or renovated for NBA teams at a cost of $2 billion — and $1.75 billion of that came from public funds.4 And did you know that under the federal tax code the NFL is classified as a nonprofit organization?5 Big genial Roger Goodell, he of the almost $4 billion in television contracts, makes like he's the United Way.
• Pro sports teams are a lot like works of art. Forbes magazine annually estimates the value of every professional franchise, based on standard financial metrics like operating expenses, ticket sales, revenue, and physical assets like stadiums. When sports teams change hands, however, the actual sales price is invariably higher. Forbes valued the Detroit Pistons at $360 million. They just sold for $420 million. Forbes valued the Wizards at $322 million. They just sold for $551 million. Forbes said that the Warriors were worth $363 million. They just sold for $450 million.
• The big difference between art and sports, of course, is that art collectors are honest about psychic benefits. They do not wake up one day, pretend that looking at a Van Gogh leaves them cold, and demand a $27 million refund from their art dealer. But that is exactly what the NBA owners are doing. They are indulging in the fantasy that what they run are ordinary businesses — when they never were.

E'Twaun Moore's Draft Day Diary

The behind the scenes look at the Celtics #55 overall draft pick, E'Twaun Moore. There have been rumors that Moore has signed with the Italian Serie A Team Cimberio Varese, but that deal supposedly will have a small window for him to opt-out should the NBA Lockout ever end.

From the Globe:

Team president Danny Ainge can’t give his approval or disapproval to Moore heading to Europe, or offer a guaranteed contract as incentive for him to remain in the States.

“It makes it tough, there’s no question,’’ Bartelstein said. “There’s things we’d like to be able to have a conversation with Danny about because I know how highly they feel about E’Twaun. But the problem at this point, we just have no confidence that the league wants to get a deal done.’’

Obviously the Celtics will retain draft rights for another year even if he signs with Varese, which could turn out to be a better option if he's Red Claw bound. But if they legitimately need SG depth, which they look like they do, it would be a big loss.

Sadly the NBA lockout has made it that

is a better and safer option in comparison to

Locked Out - Point/Counterpoint

NBA:

“We’re not going to lose any money. I’m not going to be commissioner of a league that is comfortable [losing money]. Because I don’t have a group of owners who find it acceptable for me to have that conversation with them."

“You don’t have $4 billion worth of revenue and pay out over $2 billion in salary and benefits to lose money. It’s something that we have sort of gotten used to as the revenues have gone up … but the world has changed about the prospect for all franchises, the world has changed for a lot of reasons – and economically – and now people who make investments in buildings and things expect not to lose money.”

-NBA Commissioner David Stern

Players Union:

As for the owners, they can inject all the fuzzy math they want into the equation about how many teams are losing money and how much, but humor me for a second while I get rhapsodize rhetorical:

1. How many of these billionaires actually rely on their teams to make ends meet?

2. How is it that every time a team gets sold, it fetches more folding money than the last time it was up for bids?

Stern orates about wanting the owners and players to be equal partners. I assume that means losses and profits. Fine, so fix it that the players get half the profit when the franchise is sold and half the annual write-offs.

You know who really deserves a seat at the table? No, not paying customers; they apparently enjoy having their pockets picked, no matter how deep.

It's the arena ancillaries, especially in smaller markets -- from team game-days to vendors to parking lot attendants, all whom badly need those 41-plus dates to help balance their own books -- in addition to neighborhood restaurant owners, whose existence might not totally depend on pre-and-post-game traffic, but get to maintain/increase staffs because of it.

These are the only people I'm really concerned about.

Don't make me pretend I care what happens to the owners or the players.

-Peter Vescey, NY POST

NBA:

"The expiring collective bargaining agreement created a broken system that produced huge financial losses for our teams. We need a sustainable business model that allows all 30 teams to be able to compete for a championship, fairly compensates our players, and provides teams, if well-managed, with an opportunity to be profitable."

"We have made several proposals to the union, including a deal targeting $2 billion annually as the players' share -- an average of approximately $5 million per player that could increase along with league revenue growth. Elements of our proposal would also better align players' pay with performance."

- NBA Deputy Commissioner Adam Silver

Players Union:

"For anyone who wants to extrapolate these numbers to the rest of the league, caveats apply. These are six-year-old financials for a single team in the NBA, where market size is destiny and where, for instance, New York's books won't look anything like Milwaukee's. What's more, this is about as close a look as you'll get at the financial workings of a sports franchise, and even then the balance sheets are hopelessly opaque. But that's partly the point. In the modern era, franchises are owned by businessmen who approach their teams as one of many interconnected wealth-generating mechanisms. As in Fort's example above, the real value of one asset (the Nets) can't be known without looking at the numbers for another (the Barclays Center) and another (the rest of the Atlantic Yards development), and so on. There's nothing illegal or even wrong with that, but in such a system you can see very quickly why incentives for owners often fall irreparably out of plumb with the wishes of their fans — owners want to maximize revenue (which is their right), and fans want to win (which is their nature), and both Wayne Huizenga and the folks in the grandstand at PNC Park will tell you that these goals aren't necessarily compatible."

-Deadspin: How to make a $7 million Profit look like $28 million Loss

NBA:
“I’m not scared; I’m resigned to the potential damage that it can cause to our league.” -David Stern