Anyone else remember unrestricted free agency not existing? It feels like nobody does

[Kblaze8855]

All this talk about what _____ never did and how all these legends stayed in one place...it really feels like people don't know it wasn't an option.

Gary Payton is the first player to make the hall of fame who played his entire career in a league that allowed UFA. And even that's kinda off....because the first cases required you to have played out two full contracts and be at least a 7 year vet.

Every legend who was in the HOF before Gary Payton played under one of 3 systems....

At the beginning....the early Russell/Cousy/Oscar days?

Your contract expires?

Your team can offer you a new one at any number they wish....BUT...if you don't sign? They retain your rights at 10% less than your previous seasons pay.

So lets say Durant was making 20 million...Thunder offer him 5 years 200 million....he says no for some reason....they get to keep him on a one year deal for 18 million....or he can leave the NBA. He says no the next season? Loses another 10 percent...so 1.8 million down. He now makes 16.2. This goes on till he breaks and signs the deal they offer.



Cousy(president of the players union) and others find this unfair....strike. Its changed to....you get signed at your previous seasons pay...one year at time....or leave the NBA. So no more declining pay...you just cant have a raise either so long as they offer you a deal and you decline it. This ****ed over several guys like Earl Monroe who had bigger offers from the ABA when the Bullets/Wizards wouldn't give him a raise.

He said fine...hes going to the ABA...which he could do if they didn't make him an offer at all.

So what do they do? Make him a 3 year offer for LESS than the ABA offered. But since they made it....hes required to take it or play for his previous pay. Try to go to the ABA? Lawsuit. They managed to make Rick Barry sit out a year of his prime that way even though they eventually let him go. Doctor J tried to sign with the Hawks...did it:


http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_8BVcGoREYwc/TRF9dh0b4PI/AAAAAAAAHQw/UdppsjGL3GY/s400/1974%2BDr.%2BJ%2B-%2BHawks.JPG

....and played in the preseason on an early "Superteam" with Pistol Pete, Walt bellamy, and Lou Hudson.....lawsuit from the Bucks(held his nba rights) and the ABA forced it to end before the regular season. He couldn't just....sign somewhere. Nobody could just sign somewhere they wanted to be.


Around then the ABA and NBA want to merge. This is like 1969 or 70...well before it actually happened in 76. why did it take so long? Oscar Robertson(new union leader) sued saying the merger would remove the only real competition for the NBA creating a monopoly that would force players to take shitty deals forever without even the fear of a young player out of college just signing with the ABA to get out of the NBA bully contracts.

6 years of court battles later....Oscar wins. And we have extremely restricted free agency.

You can leave....if your old teams decides your new team is compensating it enough. So in this situation....the Thunder could let Durant go....but insist on say...2 picks..Barnes...and Stephs mom. whatever. There were no particular rules. Sometimes it was cash...or owners worked out a business deal trading other assets. I think an old deal involved a player being traded for rights to a valuable parking lot and "future considerations".

Anyway that went on for some time...till Tom Chambers. I'll post some excerpts from an article on how he became the first real free agent:

[Kblaze8855]

When the new collective bargaining agreement – and its subsequent unrestricted free agency rules – became official in 1988, Suns General Manager Jerry Colangelo looked over at Seattle owner Barry Ackerley.

“You’re going to lose Chambers,” Colangelo said.

The long-time Suns’ manager did not dare assume the star forward would wind up in Phoenix, but he and his staff were determined to do all they could to make that possibility a reality.

At 12:01 a.m. of Friday, July 1, 1988, Chambers’ home phone in Los Angeles rang. On the other end of the line was Suns assistant coach Paul Westphal.



“Our intention in going there to meet with Tom was not for cordial conversation, but to come back with a signed contract,” Colangelo said. “I don’t think Tom knew that morning that he would be a Phoenix Sun by that night.”

He didn’t, but the idea became more and more appealing as that summer Saturday saw the sun pass overhead. The meeting had started at 9:00 a.m., and there was little sign it would end after lunch.

“The Suns were very aggressive,” Chambers admitted. “Cotton, Jerry and Paul were sitting in my house and they basically weren’t going home until they made a deal.”

Chambers wasn’t put off by Phoenix’s proactive approach. They might have been trying to beat him into submission, but they were beating him with millions of dollars. It was hard not to accept, let alone complain.

“They made a hell of an offer, and in my judgment we had to take it,” he said.

The speed with which an agreement was reached and ultimately announced blew the NBA and its followers away. Even with the ink of his own signature drying at the bottom of a five-year, multi-million dollar contract, Chambers was still trying to grasp what had happened.

Instead of being off-handedly used as a property, he had been wooed as a highly-sought after athlete. More importantly, the final decision had been his.

“They came in the door and offered me a deal. I couldn’t refuse it,” he said. “It caught me off guard. I was prepared to talk to six or seven other teams. I was in a unique situation to be able to pick and choose a team. I never had a chance to talk to anybody else.”





“It was cutting-edge stuff,” Chambers now reflects. “It was stuff that hadn’t really been done. Even though they offered me more money than Seattle – quite a bit more – and it seemed like a huge contract, it became obsolete almost instantaneously. You could get a player and not have to give up anything for him except for money? That’s where it went kind of crazy after that.”


Pretty much that was the start of the new era. You could just straight up...buy a player.

With all the complaining I wonder if fans today would rather it go back to the old ways.....pretty much eternal franchise tags.

It wont of course....the union would let the NBA die first.

But with all the anger....it feels like fans would support the old 1950s rules. Sign back or take paycut...and still not leave.

[Kblaze8855]

Oh and this is from a couple years later.....the media already pissed they signed him:



THE SUNS' EMPTY CHAMBERS


Wednesday, May 1, 1991 at 4 a.m.

By Tom Fitzpatrick

Don't get me wrong. Don't sit there and assume I'm astonished that the Phoenix Suns pay Tom Chambers $2,060,000 a year for halfheartedly bouncing and throwing a round ball.

I'm not astonished by a salary that makes Chambers the most overpaid man in all of professional sports. I am amazed, astounded, dumbfounded and staggered. Come to think of it, I actually am surprised.

For some peculiar reason that puzzles me, it is considered bad form among the sporting media to mention the matter of how overpaid some players in the National Basketball Association have become.

Since I'm not a member in good standing, allow me to bring it up for discussion.


Does anyone really think Kevin Johnson is worth $1,750,000 a year? Should Xavier McDaniel get $1,400,000 or Jeff Hornacek get $1,100,000?

I don't mention Dan Majerle, who has just been raised over the million-dollar mark because he seems to me the one player on the team who might conceivably be worth that kind of money.

Next time you watch the Suns play, take a look at them huddled up before the game. This season's salary for the entire roster is $11,833,000.

Who are we all kidding here? Is this a group of young men that you can easily identify with?

But it is the Chambers-salary caper that points up where the money has become ridiculous. To cite the most extreme example, an ordinary performer like John Williams of the Cleveland Cavaliers is being paid $5,000,000 for this single season of play.

The way I see it, even if Chambers were engaged in successfully slam-dunking Kuwait's flaming oil wells, his current salary should be regarded as criminally excessive.

Here in Phoenix, which is a veritable Land of Enchantment for charlatans, only those engaged in selling land planned for freeway interchanges are generally so overpaid.

But for Jerry Colangelo to willingly spend that much of his stockholders' money for cybernetic and robotic Chambers was close to madness.

He could have done better buying bonds from Charles Keating. The Keating bonds, of course, turned out to be worthless.

So is Chambers.
He is great when things are going well. If the Suns are romping to an obvious victory, you can expect Chambers to hang around at midcourt and streak for easy passes from Kevin Johnson that will help him build up his scoring average.

The easy, uncontested basket is his way of life. But in the Utah Jazz series, Chambers has generally been matched up inside against players like Karl Malone.

They don't call the Utah power forward The Mailman for nothing. Every time Malone gets close to Chambers, he snatches the basketball away and stuffs it in his bag.

Every time Chambers makes a move, Malone reaches in and swats the ball from Chambers' hands and heads for a delivery in the opposite direction.

After a few of these traumatic episodes, Chambers loses his composure. He falls apart. He misses the long shots. He misses the lay-ups. He drops passes, throws the ball away.

The only shots you can expect him to make for the remainder of the time in a game like this are from the free-throw line. He becomes the two-million-dollar-a-year free-throw shooter.

Forget about Chambers ever making a clutch shot. Don't expect him to dive for loose balls. That's not his style. Men who make $2,060,000 a season don't do things that are so socially demeaning.

Lest we forget, Chambers pulled the same thing in the playoffs last season when Buck Williams of the Portland Trail Blazers kept stripping him of the ball inside.

That became obvious after KJ was injured and point production and enthusiasm from Chambers became imperative. He didn't come through then, and we shouldn't expect him to do so in the playoffs this year, either.

Colangelo must have thought Chambers was perfect for the Suns. The so-called drug scandal had just ended. Something had to be done to remove the terrible image the irresponsible indictments by the County Attorney's Office had been.

So Colangelo leaped at the opportunity to get Chambers from the Seattle SuperSonics as a free agent. He was, of course, far from being a free agent. He was pretty damned expensive.

Colangelo knew Chambers could score over a long season, and the fact that he was white was a major plus. Chambers' face would be great on billboards and television advertising. His was an innocent white face that could help bring white season ticketholders back into the fold. The ploy worked.

Dan Majerle fits the same mold. He is also white. The difference, however, is that Majerle is also one of the hardest-working players in the entire NBA. He never quits. He never gets flustered when the league's tough guys start working on him.

What I notice now about the local sports media is that they have all risen to Chambers' defense. Listen to announcers Al McCoy and Dick Van Arsdale the next time the Suns play. Notice how often they will point out that Chambers is "trying hard." Listen to them urge the fans not to heap abuse from their seats.

Listen to KTAR Radio, which is inextricably bound to the Suns' fortunes in the playoffs and hear Jude ("I am not a homer") LaCava moaning that fans are "being unfair to poor Tom Chambers."LaCava will be wrong on at least one count. Not by any stretch of the imagination can Tom Chambers be described as "poor."

[houston]

great thread

[VengefulAngel]

Still reading, so far an interesting read.

[GOBB]

Bookmarking thread for a later date...like when I'm on an airplane for 5 hours and need something to read/kill time.

[Kblaze8855]

Bookmarking thread for a later date...like when I'm on an airplane for 5 hours and need something to read/kill time.

I grabbed my xbox controller as I read that to confirm you were recently online playing some bullshit so I could come back with "You know you don't have shit to do" but it seems you have been offline for 10 hours. So ill save that for another day.

[KobeLookLike2Pac]

http://cdn-s3.si.com/s3fs-public/2013/09/juwan-howard-heat.jpg

Damn, I miss those days

[GOBB]

I grabbed my xbox controller as I read that to confirm you were recently online playing some bullshit so I could come back with "You know you don't have shit to do" but it seems you have been offline for 10 hours. So ill save that for another day.

:roll:

[MP.Trey]

Kblaze droppin knowledge. :bowdown:

Only read the first post so far, interesting and informative. Never knew a lot of this stuff.

[Stringer Bell]

Thanks for the history lesson, I didn't know the details regarding free agency in the past.

I remember Hot Rod Williams being the highest paid player at one point. I was a kid but thinking "WTF is he doing getting paid more than Jordan and Magic and Barkley and those stars?"

Oh and that Jim Mcilvaine contract in the mid 90s when he was getting paid more than teammates Gary Payton and Shawn Kemp...Jim Mcilvaine!!?? :oldlol:

[Kblaze8855]

My main issue has just always been talks about what such and such never did. You know that Magic Johnson was under contract with the Lakers until 2009? in 81 they signed him to an extension making him the highest paid athlete ever....it kicked in in 84....and went to 2009. Contracts were totally unpredictable till after the 99 lockout.

You know Chris Webbers rookie deal was for 15 years? But the idiots gave him a bunch of player options so he threatened to opt out after a season so they had to trade him. But his deal out of college should have made him a Warrior till the season before Steph arrived.

Larry Johnsons was....and I'm not 100% sure on the number...12 years 85 million. I know it was 12 and 80ish. Jordan was on an 8 year deal. The old guys contracts were even crazier. Wilt Chamberlain as I explained was never actually a free agent...but he always used threats of retiring to get a better deal when he wanted it so he played like 10 years....on one year deals. And he didn't have an agent. Just let his deal expire...knew he couldn't sign anywhere else....told the team he would retire if they didn't pay him....then they would pay. But he couldn't just leave....not till his ABA threats after Rick Barry got away with it by sitting out a season.

Bill Russell and Red had an even stranger agreement...Russells contract was signed to just be....a dollar more than Wilt made. One dollar. Pretty much to be *****.

Putting all these rules in place governing contracts is what got us to this point. Unhindered by the rules I bet OKC signs Durant to a 10-12 year 150 millon dollar deal in like 2010....and he would be pissed about it now.

The entire system has been slowly morphing to allow total player freedom with really easy to predict contract setups letting teams prepare themselves to sign your guy away years in advance.

None of this shit was possible for many of the players that get brought up for having been "loyal". Karl Malone played from 84 to 1999 on 2 deals.

[wang4three]

I'd be surprised if people remember Gary Payton getting traded to Milwaukee for Ray Allen.

[Old Man River]

Great post. Let's talk reality. Eeveryone would collude and play with their friends if it is allowed. If it's not allowed, they stay "loyal".

[Old Man River]

"Colangelo knew Chambers could score over a long season, and the fact that he was white was a major plus. Chambers' face would be great on billboards and television advertising. His was an innocent white face that could help bring white season ticketholders back into the fold. The ploy worked.

Dan Majerle fits the same mold. He is also white. The difference, however, is that Majerle is also one of the hardest-working players in the entire NBA. He never quits. He never gets flustered when the league's tough guys start working on him."

:facepalm

[Kblaze8855]

I'd be surprised if people remember Gary Payton getting traded to Milwaukee for Ray Allen.


On here I wouldn't be surprised by that. But I was generally talking the NBA fanbase. There were millions of NBA fans when I was coming up....millions still watching now. Lots of the people I see on TV talking about what has happened to the league are my age and older. Talking about what _____ did or didn't do. It just makes me wonder....did these people forget when the free agency wars started in the 90s? None of that shit went on before then....yet we have guys listing legends who stuck it out on one team like they had a choice. As if Bob Lanier could have signed with the Lakers and just...turned it down and went back to win 20 games. Did I somehow not hear about how the big John Havlicek free agent chase went? I miss the stories on Isiahs meeting with the Warriors in 87 before coming back to the Pistons?

I swear I heard some guy covering the Knicks talk about how Willis Reed and other old school legends must look down on these guys....as if Willis reed was ever a free agent.

Dr.J, Monroe, Rick Barry, Oscar Robertson...lot of legends wanted to bolt on their teams and were simply not allowed. Some did it....and got sued. By the 80s guys who potentially could have one day been a restricted FA were on 7-8....12 year deals. Magic was signed until 2009....in 1981. When was he gonna be a free agent? Shit I think Shawn Bradley had an 8 year deal coming out of college. Isiah Thomas played his entire career on a deal he signed after like....2 seasons? He signed an 11 or 12 year deal. He was NEVER gonna be a free agent. Teams locked up young guys for life when I was a kid and guys would take the same today given the chance. Who turns down 10 years 280 million at 23? The CBA changed the rules and makes everyone a potential FA every couple years.

People old enough to know better will act like its the same playing field and it just kinda bugs me. Its like seeing a fly on my tv screen. Its not hurting anything....but I want it dead anyway.

Off the top of my head....the first straight up bigtime free agent chase? David Robinson. And that was because he was drafted then went to the Navy for 2 years making him unrestricted. He chose to turn down the Lakers offer to come replace Kareem and sign with the Spurs who drafted him when he was under no obligation to do so. But still...we have guys in the 40-50s talking about legends who were oh so competitive for not doing shit like this.....when they knew on draft night they were stuck with one team for life.

I want just one graphic...just one....that says

"Unrestricted free agency began in 1988"

at the bottom while people are steady talking about what such and such never did.

[Hey Yo]

But still...we have guys in the 40-50s talking about legends who were oh so competitive for not doing shit like this.....when they knew on draft night they were stuck with one team for life.
When "the Decision" aired and shortly after you had Magic Johnson quoted in saying "Maaaan, I would have never teamed up with Bird...I wanted to beat Larry, not play with him" (yet doesn't clarify that he couldn't have if he tried cause he signed a 25yr contract with LA)

[houston]

When "the Decision" aired and shortly after you had Magic Johnson quoted in saying "Maaaan, I would have never teamed up with Bird...I wanted to beat Larry, not play with him" (yet doesn't clarify that he couldn't have if he tried cause he signed a 25yr contract with LA)


plus Magic stated if he was going to be drafted by the bulls he would went back to college and he was happy drafted by the lakers so he can win rings with Kareem

[Stringer Bell]

When "the Decision" aired and shortly after you had Magic Johnson quoted in saying "Maaaan, I would have never teamed up with Bird...I wanted to beat Larry, not play with him" (yet doesn't clarify that he couldn't have if he tried cause he signed a 25yr contract with LA)


plus Magic stated if he was going to be drafted by the bulls he would went back to college and he was happy drafted by the lakers so he can win rings with Kareem

Magic is a cornball who talks all kinds of nonsense. LeBron and Wade were never rivals like he and Larry were, they were/are actually good friends and wanted to play together, just like Magic wanted to play with his friend Mark Aguirre and tried to get the Lakers to trade James Worthy so he could play with his buddy Aguirre.

That's not saying he would have done with LeBron did and tried to form a superteam, but if he were with a lousy organization and in Cleveland, I can definitely see him signing somewhere else in a big market like LA or NY. He has always needed the media attention.

We don't know what players in the past would have done if they had the leverage that today's players do, but I really do find it hard to picture other players doing what Durant just did. I'll gladly take it because I'm a Warriors fan, but I am very surprised that any star player would join a team that just beat his team in the conference finals, coming back from 3-1 in the process. It's not as if the Thunder is some old team about to break apart.

[iznogood]

Great stuff!

[jbryan1984]

I think though in the long run, the new CBA rules have paid off and worked in owners favors. You talked about Magic being under contract, 13 years after his last game, something I did not know and is just ridiculous. Injuries happen. Imagine if Orlando paid Grant Hill a ton of money on a 10 year deal or when Houston got T-Mac they paid him a ton of money. Some people think the Bulls were screwed by D. Rose on just a 5 year deal. And the amnesty clause has really helped these situations as well.

[houston]

Magic is a cornball who talks all kinds of nonsense. LeBron and Wade were never rivals like he and Larry were, they were/are actually good friends and wanted to play together, just like Magic wanted to play with his friend Mark Aguirre and tried to get the Lakers to trade James Worthy so he could play with his buddy Aguirre.

That's not saying he would have done with LeBron did and tried to form a superteam, but if he were with a lousy organization and in Cleveland, I can definitely see him signing somewhere else in a big market like LA or NY. He has always needed the media attention.

We don't know what players in the past would have done if they had the leverage that today's players do, but I really do find it hard to picture other players doing what Durant just did. I'll gladly take it because I'm a Warriors fan, but I am very surprised that any star player would join a team that just beat his team in the conference finals, coming back from 3-1 in the process. It's not as if the Thunder is some old team about to break apart.


Wait Magic tried to get Aguirre for Worthy you have an article for that?? Heck Hakeem tried to go to the Lakers when he demanded a trade.

:oldlol: @ Man people have revisionist theory going on with these Thunder this year man they wasn't even suppose to get past the Spurs all of a sudden they overachieve. Westbrook suppose to be this great player the Thunder should be alright lol. Durant coming off a broke foot still playing 40+ minutes and organization in chaos. People talking Kawhi Leonard better than him etc...

[Kblaze8855]

I know someone from the Lakers was trying to get Worthy traded and ive heard Dr.Buss was in on it but Jerry West wouldn't let it happen. I don't know if Magic was driving it or not.

[Stringer Bell]

Wait Magic tried to get Aguirre for Worthy you have an article for that?? Heck Hakeem tried to go to the Lakers when he demanded a trade.

:oldlol: @ Man people have revisionist theory going on with these Thunder this year man they wasn't even suppose to get past the Spurs all of a sudden they overachieve. Westbrook suppose to be this great player the Thunder should be alright lol. Durant coming off a broke foot still playing 40+ minutes and organization in chaos. People talking Kawhi Leonard better than him etc...

That's one of the reasons Jordan didn't like Magic at first (another being the alleged ASG freeze-out).

Jordan & Worthy played together at North Carolina, and UNC players were taught to be loyal to UNC. I forgot who said it, it was in the book "Playing for Keeps" by David Halberstam, but someone called it "the Dean Smith cult". So Jordan didn't like the way Magic treated Worthy.

Worthy was a better fit for the Lakers anyway.

That Showtime book by Jeff Pearlman talks about the proposed Worthy/Aguirre trade. A couple of the articles below said Magic told Worthy he didn't try to push for the trade, but a couple of books said otherwise.

The Rockets had just defeated the Lakers in the 1986 WCF with Olajuwon and Sampson, and the Lakers wanted more size, and were planning on getting Dallas's draft pick to get Roy Tarpley.

http://articles.latimes.com/1991-06-02/sports/sp-418_1_michael-jordan


There were several uneasy years. Jordan reportedly bristled at speculation Johnson was touting a trade of James Worthy--Michael's ex-North Carolina teammate--to Dallas for Aguirre.

Once, however, Jordan noted publicly that Johnson didn't invite Worthy to his charity game.

"Yeah, that kinda made me upset," Johnson says.

http://www.nytimes.com/1987/05/25/sports/nba-playoffs-lakers-worthy-now-playing-well.html


It occurred soon after the collegiate draft - a day when the Lakers, groping for something to erase the indignity of their loss to the Houston Rockets in the Western Conference finals, came precariously close to accomplishing what would have been a dramatic trade of two talented small forwards: James Worthy, their own silent but effective star, for Mark Aguirre of the Dallas Mavericks, a temperamental player with seemingly limitless potential.

Reports had circulated that the trade was instigated by Earvin (Magic) Johnson, the Lakers' talented playmaker who is a close friend of Aguirre's from their childhood days in Michigan. But, ultimately, the deal was squashed by Donald Carter, the Mavericks' owner, who believed Aguirre's life had been shaken enough by the death of his mother

That left Johnson, who felt wronged by the reports, with only one option. ''I called him,'' Johnson said, referring to Worthy. ''We just talked. Sometimes things are said in the media and they're taken the wrong way. We needed to clear the airwaves.''

http://articles.philly.com/1987-06-03/sports/26183232_1_lakers-houston-s-twin-towers-trade


Last year's NBA draft began with a stunning bit of insider trading, as the 76ers sent Moses Malone and Terry Catledge to Washington for Jeff Ruland, Cliff Robinson and a disappointing season to be named later.

The big board almost lit up with another blockbuster deal - James Worthy of the Lakers to Dallas for Roy Tarpley and Mark Aguirre. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was nearing 40, and L. A. was looking to add the 6-foot 11-inch Tarpley to an aging skyline that had been dominated by Houston's Twin Towers, Akeem Olajuwon and Ralph Sampson. Aguirre just happened to be one of Magic Johnson's best friends.

Lakers owner Jerry Buss pushed for the trade. But general manager Jerry West held firm. Finally, West won out. It turned out to be the best deal that L. A. never made.


When the trade rumors hit the papers, Worthy was shocked, upset. So he had a couple of sessions to smoke the peace pipe. One with Riley. One with Johnson.

"I think James was upset at the beginning," Riley said. "I don't think it affected him to the point where he felt we were disloyal to him. It's just a tough business. I told James, look at Kareem, he was traded. Wilt Chamberlain was traded.

"It's the ultimate contradiction in team sports. When you have people around a long time, you really have to preach and believe in trust and loyalty. But nobody ever in this business can think they're above being traded."

Johnson had come across to some as Ivan Boesky in tennis shoes. So he sat down with Worthy, told him that he had in no way tried to manipulate a trade for Aguirre. The two teammates settled their differences.

"I didn't want him to think I didn't want to play with him," Johnson said. "By us just talking about it, and him realizing that wasn't the case, everything would be easier for us."

If there is anything that Worthy dislikes more than the idea of a trade, it's talking about it. He dismisses the whole Aguirre-Tarpley affair with two words.

"It's history," he said.

[Kblaze8855]

Lakers owner Jerry Buss pushed for the trade. But general manager Jerry West held firm. Finally, West won out. It turned out to be the best deal that L. A. never made.

That's the part I knew. But ive read it happened twice and that Buss wanted Worthy traded in 84 as well....but West wouldn't sign off and they wouldn't do it without is blessing.

[artificial]

Great thread. Definitely tired of all the "players used to be loyal to their teams" talk, but I admittedly didn't know many of the stories in here. Very interesting read.

[houston]

Wow at the Magic/Worthy stuff. I knew they didn't like each other but I didn't know it was going to get that crucial. Thanks for the insight guys.

Yea I knew Magic/Aguirre/Zeke were buddies and heck that what Adrain Dantley accuse Zeke doing when he got traded for Aguire.

[Stringer Bell]

http://dsz7vodgjx60a.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/10104633/magic3.jpg

[Kblaze8855]

For anyone interested this is Oscar Robertson taking his case against the merger to congress in 1971.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqDcP_J5Lis


The guy who kinda mocks him by asking if he feels hes worth more than the 100,000 hes paid is Sam Ervin. One of the chief backers of segregation and Jim Crow laws. Now...for the record ill say Ervin later went on to get behind some civil liberty issues...but still. He was on the side of the south with regards to the Jim Crow laws. Oscar looked like he wanted to go off on him.


Oscars point was...as I said...with a merger they have a monopoly on pro basketball and destroy any leverage players have to argue for better deals. Oscar and few other players in there are the reason the NBA exists as it currently does. He laid out everything from the unfairness of only being allowed to move by trades, to limited contracts, and so on.

The senator keeps getting on him about how he has a 700,000 dollar contract and Oscar keeps his cool and tries to explain the situation....and how it still isn't what he could get if things were fair...and hes a businessman like any other...not just an athlete.

People hate on him for his comments all the time but when you look into it....Oscar Robertson kinda built the modern NBA....

[Kblaze8855]

You can watch the whole thing together here:


http://www.nbcuniversalarchives.com/nbcuni/clip/5113061689_s01.do



At one point the senator mentions that the Hawks were paying a player 168,000 less per year than they admitted he was actually worth.

You can tell they saw the players point even if they found it funny they were complaining about money while being so rich.

Dave Debusschere is in there arguing as well. They fought for 6 years to keep that merger from happening without changing the free agency rules. And it was still 12 years after they won before anyone really had freedom.

At the time it was about money. Now its about money and freedom of movement. Such things interest me on lazy sunday afternoons.....