Lockout: Owner vs. Owner

As a a basketball fan the impending lockout looms large. The summer league has already been canceled, and there is sure to be a shortened NBA season as the owners and player's association butt heads over player compensation. Although the lockout is portrayed as a conflict between players and owners the origin of the lockout is the inherent competition among franchises.

A number of basketball teams are losing money and the owners are blaming bloated player salaries. The owners wish to create a more profitable environment by settling on a collective bargaining agreement which would lower salaries across the board. What is usually ignored in this very convoluted situation is that owners choose how much they play their players. If they wanted to pay less for a player they could simply offer them a contract for less money. In fact, franchises are given incentives to keep player salaries under the current salary cap, yet franchises continue to pay players to the point of financial ruin. The new collective bargaining agreement will become the league wide law which keeps compensation in check for all NBA teams, so no team will be able to shoot itself in the foot on a bad contract. So the real question is: Why do NBA teams make voluntary decisions to lose money? 

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The Direction of the Franchise

Everybody's got plans... until they get hit.

-Mike Tyson

When Stan Van Gundy joined the Orlando Magic in June of 2007 he devised a plan to build around Dwight Howard. This plan revolved around ball movement, defense, and three point shooting. His philosophy was that the three point shooters would spread the defense and exploit double teams. If the defense wanted to double Dwight, the ball movement of the Magic would punish the opposition by hitting open threes. If teams refused to double team Dwight, he would punish them in the paint.

During the summer of 2007 free agency period (along with early season trades), the Magic added Rashard Lewis, Mo Evans, Brian Cook, and Marcin Gortat. Shooting Guard Keith Bogans also became a prominent part of the rotation. The Magic played a “small” lineup of Dwight at center, Lewis at power forward, Hedo at small forward, either Evans or Bogans at shooting guard, and Nelson at point. The success was immediately apparent as the team exploded, winning 14 of their first 17 games to start the season. Their final record was 52-30, good enough for first place in the southeast division and a short trip into the second round.