Does anybody else think this Joe Johnson thing is totally ridiculous? I do. I think what the NBA did is totally wrong. How can they get rid of an owner for blocking a deal he didn't think was in the best interest of his team? It isn't like the guy is historically a terrible owner or anything, he just thought Joe Johnson didn't deserve to be paid money like that and that they would suffer down the road for it. He is allowed his opinion and the NBA forcing the deal seems to reek of too much meddling by the league.
posted by Anonymous at
2:48 PM
2 Comments:
I have no problem with any of it. I bet this has less to do with the trade than it does with the stupid ownership setup. If Steve Belkin were an actual majority owner, with 51% or whatever, I could see it being over the line to have Der Fuhrer sticking his nose in. But he doesn't. He owns 30%, and the other 70% wants the deal to go down. What he should have done was step aside, but instead he's making some kind of power play that's falling on its face. Whatever it is he's doing, it's definitely not how you co-exist in a partnership. Hence Herr Stern is stepping in.
As for Der Kommissar, I'd far prefer that he meddle with owners than with players. If the players are going to be held up to a Nazi-like standard of behavior, just because their cultural identity frightens Whitey, I say owners can withstand a little fascism in exchange for their billions of dollars.
By
Jeff, at 4:55 PM
Jurass, the joint decision-making setup is made clear in this ESPN story (see 9th paragraph). Each of the three primary ownership groups gets a 1/3 vote in club decisions. Two of the three were in favor, and Belkin was against. The yeas had it, and for Belkin to do anything but shut up and smile was beyond his rights, and made him liable for any action his co-owners take against him. So while it may suck for a 30% owner to lose a battle, and it's unfortunate that his investment won't pay off after he gets bought out, he should have thought of that before he violated the agreement. It's entirely his fault.
I actually think he wants to be bought out. I also don't buy the protecting-his-investment stuff... publicly embarrassing one's franchise and one's ownership partners hardly qualifies as protecting one's investment. He did more damage to the value of his 30% stake all by himself than the Joe Johnson deal could have ever done, so if he were so concerned about protecting his investment, he would have shut up and cooperated as he was obligated to do... which he did not. Meanwhile, if the trade had forced him to conclude that he wanted out of ownership in the beginning, he had nothing to lose by challenging. The initial ruling suggests he had a good chance to win, and even in the worst-case scenario (which is what happened) his co-owners' investment plummets. That actually makes sense to me. Doing any of this in order to do the right thing by a shitty basketball team, thus losing oneself millions of dollars, does not.
By
Jeff, at 11:02 AM
Post a Comment
<< Home