NBPA Exec Dir Michele Roberts on Thursday said that data indicates the NBA "is in a healthy financial state but that the union would like a closer look at the league's bookkeeping," according to Kevin Arnovitz of ESPN.com. Roberts: "We agreed not to debate the finer points of negotiation in public and aren't going to change that approach now, in response to some remarks by [Commissioner Adam Silver] on Tuesday. We are, however, going to take him up on his offer to share the audited financials with the union." Silver after Tuesday's BOG meeting said that a "significant number of NBA teams are losing money because of rising expenses." Arnovitz noted the union, "if it chooses to, can opt out" of the current CBA in '17, though Silver on Tuesday said that he "didn't believe such an outcome was certain." Roberts in the past year has "challenged the underlying principle of a salary cap and mocked the suggestion of NBA owners losing money" (ESPN.com, 7/16). CSNBayArea.com’s Ray Ratto said Silver's comment about teams losing money is just “standard posturing before a big CBA negotiation." He said, "The interesting thing is they’ve chosen to do it this far ahead of time, to basically drop the gauntlet and say, ‘We’re losing money, we need relief in this new deal even though our television money is going to geometrically leap forward.’" Ratto: "He’s going to have to answer how teams like this are losing money now and how much more money they’re going to lose when all of a sudden there’s more money coming in” ("Yahoo Sports Talk Live," CSN Bay Area, 7/16).
IN THE RED HERRING? In Toronto, Doug Smith writes Silver's "gall astounds" him. Silver "stands up and says a 'significant number' of NBA teams are continuing to lose money and fans in Milwaukee have to sweat out the Bucks going to the Wisconsin senate" for $250M in public money for a new arena after the new owners "held everyone hostage by saying the team was Vegas-bound if they didn’t get cash." Smith: "I also know pretty well that creative accounting at that level can turn a profit into a loss quicker than you can say Wall Street is full of robber barons." He adds, "Sure, maybe on a year-to-year operating basis, some teams are in the red but that’s not either unusual or concerning to me. Isn’t the true 'value' of something like a sports franchise determined by what you bought it for and what you sell it for and if you get it for $500 million and sell it for $2 billion, those annual losses aren’t really a big deal, right?" Smith: "I cannot imagine there is any appetite for another work stoppage anywhere connected with the league. ... I remain personally optimistic that nothing untoward will happen but this week’s turn of events is shaking that optimism a bit" (THESTAR.com, 7/16).
