The rest is just noise

In February, during the All-Star Weekend, the league and the NBPA were negotiating again.

Two months have passed since the last negotiation, and both sides are unhappy.

Two months can allow both parties to calm down, seriously consider the other party's demands, and then come up with a more reasonable plan.

The league's top priority is to immediately reduce spending, as some teams can no longer support themselves.

The players' union's demand is to share the revenue from the broadcast contract with the league.

This violated the bottom line of some teams.

It is difficult for some weak teams to sell tickets, and the revenue from broadcast contracts is an important source of income for them, which involves another issue.

At the team level, income inequality between the rich and the poor is also a significant phenomenon.

A team like the Lakers that spends money without hesitation has not lost money. Buss has successfully promoted the Lakers and made the rich and famous people in Los Angeles think that going to the Forum Arena to watch games is a shameful thing. A matter of light.

No one knows how much business Buss has made through Lakers games.

Negotiations have made slow progress. The union began to accept the setting of a salary cap, but they did not accept a hard cap. They agreed to set a floating soft cap, and the amount of the soft cap should be determined based on the league's total revenue.

Then there is the broadcast contract share that the union is most concerned about.

This share determines the size of the salary cap.

The league was only willing to give away between 30% and 40% of the profits, and Larry Fleischer sneered because they could also ask for 60% to 70% of the revenue, but this was meaningless to the negotiations.

After many negotiations, they successfully set the contract share between 52% and 57%.

Things seemed to be going so smoothly that the league thought their negotiations with the union were about to be completed, but when the next round of negotiations began, Fleischer made a new proposal.

He threw out a contract that stated that the salary cap would take effect in the 1986-87 season, which was the end date of the settlement agreement in the Robertson case. From that year on, the league would usher in complete free agency, unlike Now this restricted free agent is taking off his pants and making noise.

This contract can eliminate players' concerns about the salary cap and avoid the legal issues caused by the Robertson case, but it violates a bottom line of the bosses-the bosses' demand is to implement the salary cap immediately starting from next season. to save money.

The negotiations between the two sides were close to breaking down. After Fleischer returned, he immediately telegraphed all the players to state his position.

The tension increased.

In Boston, the more Louis looked at Archibald, the more he felt like George Hill who called on the team to strike in 2020.

He asked everyone to act together and force the team to adjust better flights and better hotels for them.

Bill Fitch did not allow players to create conflicts over this kind of thing. He did something that made him lose the respect of all players.

In order to punish the players, he forced the team to arrange economy class for the players.

And the coaching staff all flew first class.

Even Bird couldn't accept his approach, and the atmosphere within the Celtics team took a turn for the worse.

Louis chose to sit in economy class with the players. He had to appease the emotions of the team. Although Fitch was detonating the team, it would not be good for him to explode the team now.

The same thing happened to other teams.

For example, the Dallas Mavericks, a new team that joined the league, were forced to book two flights to buy a sufficient number of first-class seats in order to meet the needs of their players.

There are also teams that have no money and choose to compete with players.

Relations between the players and the team began to sour, leading to the 1983 Los Angeles All-Star Game being shut down.

For the pre-game warm-up show, the NBA invited comedian Jonathan West. He is a funny man. Before inviting him, league officials also tested him. They unanimously determined that West could make everyone laugh.

come out.

As a result, on the day of the performance, the players seemed to have agreed upon it, and everyone had expressionless faces.

Winster was shocked when he saw rows of black people standing in front of him. He knew that he and these people had no common language, and they even had different smiles.

In the end, he routinely performed his best show of killing Japanese people - a show full of racism that triggered Asian criticism of the NBA.

Louis jumped out and strongly criticized the program as a representative of Boston's Asian community: "I don't know who arranged it, but I believe everyone was dissatisfied with it. There was no laughter on the scene, and NBA officials seemed to feel that this was

Funny? You racists can’t even pretend to be?”

The ironic scene continued to happen.

Stern came out to apologize to all Asians who felt offended, but he emphasized that artistic creation should be free, and comedian Jonathan Winster is very respected in his field.

There were more and more pressing matters, and before the league could deal with the bombs it had caused, Fleischer asked the players union to issue them an ultimatum.

If they don't reach a new deal by April 1, the players will strike in protest.

Archibald looked more like Celtic's leader than ever.

He expressed his position in front of Bird: "If we cannot reach a new agreement by then, we will stop work, it's that simple!"

For the first time Louis felt like he was witnessing some history.

What happened in February 1983, and what will happen in March and April, will be difficult for future fans to understand.

From his perspective from the future, the league must have successfully introduced the salary cap in the end, but it is unknown how many difficulties and obstacles it experienced during this process.

For now, he sees no possibility of an agreement between the two parties.

Moreover, disputes between players and owners about money have angered fans.

They've had enough of players pocketing a steady stream of money while making a mess of the game, and they don't like greedy owners who continue to cry for poverty.

The players union issued an ultimatum to the league, and then it was the turn of the stars of each team to express their stance.

"This is not a threat, this is a defense." Troublemaker Kareem Abdul-Jabbar told reporters, "We just want to maintain our current income and create an upward channel, but the bosses feel that we have taken too much money.

I don’t think they can get what they want.”

Jazz's future star David Griffith said: "I can 100% guarantee that if the situation does not change, 11 of us will choose the same way to respond (strike)."

Bird, who never wanted to be the focus in front of the media, expressed his voice on behalf of the entire team: "We have no obligation to save the boss. The boss should save himself. If necessary, we can give up the game."

Later he added.

"If this league is going to collapse," Bird said emphatically, "let it collapse."

There's only one team that doesn't want a shutdown.

That's the Philadelphia 76ers.

In order to chase the championship, they took the lead in breaking the silence during the offseason and introduced Moses Malone with a huge contract that shamed the owners.

They had the best record in the league, four members of the team were selected to the All-Stars, and Dr. J won the AMVP. This is their year.

The atmosphere was unprecedentedly tense, and the next negotiation between the league and the union was set for March 1.

For the owners, the only thing they want to confirm is whether the players union really wants to destroy it.

Failure is definitely one of the last things any team wants to see.

Because CBS has increased the live broadcast and promotion of NBA games this year, the ratings have increased. The playoffs are the time for fans to see the real excitement of the NBA. That is the time to make big money. Once it fails at that time, the league will

The reputation that was finally built will fall to the bottom.

If they cannot seize the opportunity while the relationship between the NFL and CBS deteriorates, they will not know when the next time they will be taken seriously by the TV station.

As March approached, the league suddenly canceled its meeting with the union.

Not only that, they also held a press conference and prepared a six-page press release.

It was an aggressive public relations campaign designed to emphasize the NBA's standing, intimidate players and try to put pressure on other parties -- the players, the union and Fleischer -- publicly and privately, nationally and locally.

The press release lays out the NBA's current position in the negotiations, explains the salary cap proposal, and provides the public with detailed information. The message the NBA wants to send is that their demands are fair and reasonable, and that it is the players union that sabotaged the agreement.

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The NBA wants to take advantage of public opinion.

Obviously the NBA's reputation is not good, and the players' reputation is even worse.

This will establish in the minds of fans across the country the impression that the NBA is a group of bastards with bad living habits, violent tendencies, greed and dissatisfaction.

There is still one month left before the strike deadline given by the union, and the two sides have not reached any consensus.

Moreover, the relationship has deteriorated, the negotiations have basically broken down, the masks have been pulled off the faces, and each other is throwing dirty water on each other ferociously.

Louis couldn't believe they would reach an agreement before the deadline came.

Is this season really suspended?

Here are the pros and cons of ignorance of history.

The advantage is that it makes him look forward to future progress, but the disadvantage is that he worries that the results will not be what he expected.