The NBA at Large

Written October 23.2012

There's nothing productive for the fans with a lockout in professional team sports. With momentum being necessary to continue growth in ratings, ticket sales, merchandising and global penetration, major sports leagues can ill afford down time. The NFL locked out its players this past year but only as a pretense to solidify its position and reaffirm the agreements preemptively put forth by both the owners and players union. There never was any real danger to losing games and while key players did attach themselves to a "just-in-case" anti-trust lawsuit against the NFL, the league was not about to risk removing itself from the position it values most: Number 1. That's right, make no mistake about it, the National Football League is no. 1 in professional sports in terms of size, money, ratings, tv deals, merchandise, momentum and appeal. What Major League Baseball and the National Basketball Association want to achieve is success by its own standards while making enough noise to rotate at different times of the year as a top 3 sport while capturing top numbers during All-Star weekends and its playoffs. With billions of dollars at stake and systems in place to assure all parties involved a healthy piece of the pie, there's no question that any collective bargaining agreement in place will make the players millionaires. Whether teams are profitable or not in a given year, owners will continue to operate as billionaires with fluctuating levels of wealth most people can't ascribe to in multiple lifetimes.

Major events in sports always draw a dividing line when it comes to fans and whether based on emotions or rationale, these reactions are very much paid attention to by sports leagues. One of the more interesting ideas from naysayers is how too many fans "take it personally." To quote the legendary Tom Hagen, "It was business, not personal Sonny!" And with completely the opposite meaning, the calculating and meticulous Michael Corleone resolves, "It's not personal Sonny. It's strictly business." The same directly emotional decision Michael makes to both avenge his father and assure his future safety under the cool guise of business comes from the same place we hold our sports teams close to our hearts and not our brains. You should take it personally. When a franchise player up and decides to leave your team for greener pastures whether flavored with snide arrogance or humble aspiration, fans have the right to feel heart broken and prone to irrational emotions. Isn't that how it feels right after and during a nasty break-up? You don't wish that person well as they leave for a better pairing with someone else, you stew and marinate in the calamity of your freshly ended relationship. Or you put up walls and pretend everything's great and right with the world.

So when fans of NBA basketball start proclaiming from the skies that they'll be protesting basketball by not attending or watching games, its from that deep seeded place that resents the momentum shifting from the passion of the fans to the bank accounts, contracts, percentages, rights, and business of the players and owners. There are levels of merit to what problems in life elicit empathy or sympathy. When a hardworking family of 4 with both parents striving to make ends meet with their collective $40,000 per year income, there isn't a sensible person who wouldn't empathize with their struggles to pay bills and take care of their children at basic needs levels. So when billionaire owners complain that the economic model and system of the NBA needs to be restructured because their teams are in a state of non-profitability, it's at first glimpse a tough pill to swallow. Billionaires don't buy teams because the want or need them to be profitable. I'd love to own an NBA or NFL team. It's any sports fan's dream come true at first bite. How much fun would that be? Unlimited access to games, great seats, etc. and clearly a lifestyle befitting of someone who has the money to spare to afford a team. The average NFL team is currently valued at 1 Billion dollars. That's your number to get started at the bargaining table to get your offer submitted if you're working alone or in tandem with an ownership group. Of course, if you bring in an ownership group of investors, you start to dilute power and have people to answer to even as the majority owner. So in keeping the dream in total ownership, you're going to have to accept writing a billion dollar check with enough cash and credit in reserve to withstand the ups and downs of the business. Let's assume you don't need an M.B.A. or even be business savvy to own your team (afterall, great CEO's and owners hire great managers) to get approved by the commissioner and owners to make your purchase. You start to realize that if you're going to make this dream a reality, your probably not going to want your shiny new team to cost you more than 20 or 40 percent at most of your total net worth. That means at worst you're billionaire at around the $2.5 billion level. NFL too rich for your blood? Let's move to the NBA then. The average NBA team is valued at around $370 million dollars, a bargain compared to the NFL. If you shot for the Stars (no pun intended) and went right at the heart of Jerry Jones, you'd better be prepared to show him $1.85 billion dollars (most valued team in the NFL) to start, assuming the immortal owner is willing to part ways with his most prized possession in the Dallas Cowboys. Want a piece of the most valuable NBA team which typically toggles between the New York Knicks and Los Angeles Lakers? Well this year New York tops the values list at a premium $655 million. (The San Antonio Spurs currently value in at $404 million) So the point is, to quote Anthony Hopkins' Charles Morse in 'The Edge,' "Never feel sorry for a man who owns a plane." Billionaires don't buy teams for profit potential or investment opportunity. They buy teams because they can. Because it's fun, or a dream come true, or a symbol of wealth, or the next checkmark on a list of luxury to-do's that never ends or some other personal level of achievement that might otherwise have seemed insurmountable until there were millions and billions to spare.

The previous split in the NBA's collective bargaining agreement gave players a 57 percent share of total BRI (basketball related income) that includes ticket sales, concessions, merchandise, television contracts, and other sources. The overall inflation of player salaries from the 1980's to now has been staggering in its increase that has seen contracts reward players far beyond their comparable relative worth. With the owners left to use that 43 percent to operate the give and take between expenses and revenues, players were guaranteed their 57 percent regardless of what type of season the owners endured from an economic standpoint. So you begin to see where the issues began, with the mid 2000's collapse of the housing market, stock market, corporation bankruptcies and bailouts bore the fruit of the bad economy. So now, any business or individual could look at their financial holdings and know the bad economy was and is to blame for any necessary cutbacks. Mind you, there are millions of Americans who lay claim to the disastrous effects of the economy with lost jobs, salary reductions, injured investments and such that have significantly altered how life is lived. Speaking as someone who knows what it felt like to be sat in a room with my superior and the human resource representative to be given the standard issue notification that my position was no longer able to be supported due the available budget, I could now testify that the long arm of the economic law even applied to public educators. Some owners of professional sports teams also saw losses as the split of BRI dictated that their players be paid regardless of how much money went to operate their team and how much less money came in from ticket sales, merchandise, television ratings and contracts, etc. The players side is really quite easy to understand. They want to maintain their current split percentage or improve it while loosening the restrictions that allow them to maneuver via trades or free agency to large market cities after paying their dues with the teams that drafted them (typically small market teams).

Fans have criticized both sides for their greed, egos, pride, etc. that is to blame for the loss of games and the shortened season that will now ensue. And rightfully so, there is accountable blame on both parties. The owners take a new hardline stance that says the new deal will bring the BRI split to a more even 50-50 or 49-51 in favor of the players to shift some of the billions of dollars of pie back in the owners corner. The owners also institute newer versions of the luxury tax that will more harshly penalize teams with deeper pockets or at least pockets willing to be deepened at will to sign and pay multiple star players while surpassing the salary cap to do so. The NBA has operated under a soft cap which allows teams to surpass the cap amount that is the same for each team under a number of allowances and exceptions. Once the tax threshold was passed, teams paid a dollar for dollar tax on their team payrolls. The owners originally pushed and hoped for a hard salary cap. This would have provided two benefits: One: every team has the same amount to spend on a team and can't exceed it for any reason thus cutting costs to maintain a team and two: further create competitive balance among the 30 NBA teams vying for playoffs and championship contention by trimming the differences between small and large market cities/teams.

While's there no doubt the upcoming season will return basketball to a dedicated and loyal fan base, there's sure to be unseen fallout over time but the reality is this; At what cost will a condensed season come at? Surely a large increase in sporadic injury, coaches resting veteran starters on the final leg of a 4 games in 5 night stretch, less filled arenas, and prime time games not delivering as much with fatigue contributing to miserable shooting percentages. One thing is certain, on one end you'll have players making millions of dollars playing the game we love and owners making millions of dollars selling the game we love. Ok two things are certain. We'll always love this game too. Your move NBA.

The Color of Sound

Where is the best place to listen to music? In your car? In the movie theater? In your home theater? With your headphones on? From a Stereophonic vinyl record player? With studio monitors from a mixer? Portable audio devices?

Its amazing what these and other listening environments give you when you're alone with nothing but the sound, your thoughts and your feelings. In the car maybe you tend to sing along and gather snap moments of inspiration by belting it out loud. Maybe its that feeling that you're able to sing as good as the vocals because its so loud you can't hear what you really sound like. That's definitely me. In the movie theater I sit there with the enveloping feeling of motivation that anything artistic I can think of is possible. And you know why? Because the soundtrack or choice song being used is pulling me somewhere I figured out long ago in my imagination to be unreachable. Every time we listen to new music or old music or great music or terrible music, it tends to have some type of chemical reaction in our heart and in our mind. Is that something we can capture and refine into a tangible product of creativity? Or like so many other moments in time, is a but a fleeting snapshot of a life that could have been.

LOST

When I think of the word art, I constantly remind myself how little of the world I have seen or been exposed to. There is so much to see and experience that I realize I will never get my hands on and that’s something I can make peace with. For everything else that I do have imprinted on my memory, my mind, and my heart, I am eternally grateful to feel fulfilled at being able to receive the creation that others have chosen to share with me. Creation is difficult, messy, imperfect, and incomplete. Creation is a snapshot of what someone or many choose to walk away from and allow us to view and experience in that moment in time. I think about all the arts that I love and sometimes feel like I was born to experience specific types over others. Music, film, the written word, and television seem to be the front runners for me. And when I look back at the earliest TV and films that gave me that feeling we all know, I realize not much has changed since childhood. I’m always on the hunt for that feeling when I let something new in. So why does Lost deserve my written expressions where so many others have stayed internal and only come up at the round table? I think its more for me and maybe the few that might care to have the written word further stimulate thought.

The End came and washed over me with a captivating presence that made time stand still. I knew before it began that I was a part of something special for me. I also knew that there was a shared audience of friends and stranger alike that for whatever their own reasons, were for the most part equally invested. I suppose the question is, when you experience art, is what are you looking for? Our reactions to many things tend to be a very reflection of ourselves and in that is where something is beautiful in itself. I’m amazed at how so many including myself begin to take ownership of something that we feel belongs to us though not created by us and therefore now have a limit on what will give us that feeling of completion that satisfies our desires and fulfills our wishes. Television series’ have that separation from film that their lifespan takes years in most cases to develop and complete a story and in that time, we have the internal penetration of thought and emotion. I’ve seen a lot of television that is flat out ridiculous and terrible in every objective way measurable. And I also know there is someone armed with a large ideas and a backing fan base of others that can refute me. And that’s pretty incredible. Because people are thinking. They may not think like you or me, and you may pass judgment on them as I often do with a certain level of skepticism and incredulity, but at the core, they’re using their minds to form an opinion.

I’m in no way a good writer, in fact it’s the one thing I love to do that I know I have little craft for and tend to veer into incoherence but today I’m going to try because when you have “the feeling”, you shouldn’t ignore it or trivialize it. I thought tonight’s finale to Lost was amazing and magnificently executed. I also thought it left me asking questions that were both new and old. I also realized this was done intentionally though probably not with the intent of incensing a fan base that the creators are 100% aware and conscious of. I have seen some modes of art that seem to quietly or loudly play with its fan base and appreciators with an intentionally divergent creation that contradicts the very thing that inspired them and us. (see Tool’s 10,000 days or the Matrix sequels). While I can never truly know unless directly told, I do feel that the creators of Lost don’t fall into this aggravating category, at least for the most part. What I saw tonight was a culmination of a story that had been both alluded to and presented in a way that was consistent with the basic premise of the show’s origin. And much like life, we’re left realizing that our satisfaction or dissatisfaction with it as much a healthy criticism as it is a telling reflection of ourselves. I think a big part of the use of mirrors in this final season had a lot to do with that as well. Our characters weren’t simply questioning their self crafted existence, but were giving us a chance to look at ourselves too. And at its heart, I think Lost was a story about human life and the lives and journey of these people we came to know and love in every emotional and logical sense. I think a lot of what happened early on in the series was that while we all love to feel emotion and genuine heartfelt attachment to life, we become obsessed with the mythic presentation of symbolism and mystery. We are in so many ways a present reflection of the real life explorers who constantly sought and seek answers to the great mysteries of the world and universe. The search for answers to archaeology, the quest for gold, the unraveling of the mysteries of the church and countless religions, the secrets of the government and secret societies and countless other things in existence. And sometimes if we spend our life’s work pursuing these obsessions, maybe we forget to love. Or we forget to laugh or call a friend to go out. We forget that the story of our lives involves family, friendship and love. Not the questions we’ll leave when we’re gone from this world. “What’s inside his safe?” “Why did he always wear that yellow shirt on Fridays?” The questions of our lives could keep those interested busy for two lifetimes. Does it bother me that the Sideways world was a construct of the souls of our beloved characters? Not really and while it wasn’t what I was expecting or maybe even hoping for, it did make complete sense and reminded again about how I view things and myself. People make mental constructs all the time in their lives. Some are healthy and some are unhealthy, but what they usually end up being is some type of personal journey that does have a destination. I think of Chuck P.’s Tyler Durden construct that the narrator created for himself as a means to end of personal journey that in literature and in the film adaptation left most people heralding its greatness and brilliance as well they should. The Sideways world storyline device was one that required a lot of patience from its audience and also was the one that received the most vocal distaste and criticism for. Again, a film or book like Fight Club doesn’t have to ask patience of its audience because relative time will allow for a speedy beginning and end within itself versus week at a time waits or season breaks in between. And you know what, we’re not very patient people. From the final season’s begin to now, I felt very happy that my patience was only tested one or two times, but it wasn’t at the start or the end. I feel like I’ve had some incredible works that laid the mental and emotional ground for me to take on a show like Lost and feel positive about its conclusion and entirety. Six Feet Under and Carnivale come to mind as the two shows that also presented character driven stories in a world where everything was impossible until it wasn’t. Constructs of the dead reflecting the characters own selves in their most profound moments of everyday life or the mythology of Good vs. Evil in a time before man traded away wonder for reason opened me up to the conscious altering feeling and knowledge that anything was possible. Disbelief no longer needed suspension, I was ready to take a trip anywhere and would stay aboard as long as it takes.

Lost opened itself to a common quandary that we see in everyday life in ourselves or others. Something is presented that stimulates us mentally or visually in its pure form or symbolism. We’re filled with the excitement and anticipation of the journey that will lead to its step by step, inferred, or direct revelation. And slowly but surely, week by week, season to season, our patience begins to wear, our excitement fades and morphs into dissatisfaction and the toe tapping for answers begins. And worse, that invisible window of time passes and we’re left hanging or at least we believe we are and fury takes over. But with the emotional investment and opposing batch of satisfying resolutions we did end up with, we’re able to keep our heads up and our mouths ready for the next meal. Think of a relationship or purchase or dinner that had the same qualities and carried with it similar expectations, rewards, let downs all mixed in together. Then ask yourself if another person would have felt the exact same way with the same circumstances at their hands. A lot of questions we had in Lost were never answered directly or indirectly but many of them were and most likely as a way to remind us what the creators intent for their art was for. And in some ways to purposely present the reality that in life we are faced with the exact same thing. Do we really need them to do that for us? Shouldn’t we be entitled to know the WHAT, HOW and not just the WHY? Yeah I think so, but it doesn’t take away anything from the amazing 6 year emotional journey that I felt in my heart for the story of the people. So they never explained the food palette drop? Or did Ben simply tell Mikhail to press the computer execute code for food in the station he was in to help sustain the castaways nutrition to make sure at the least Jack would stay healthy enough to do a spinal surgery. Ok fine, so who received that call and why weren’t they interested in discovering what events were happening on the island long after the dissolution of the Dharma Initiative? Or was Alvar Hanso and Gerald DeGroot behind the food and just let it be. Or did Charles Widmore use his finance and technology to intercept that signal call and orchestrate the food drop himself? You see how this could go on all day but doesn’t further the story and could start to reflect just how obsessive we are capable of being with details and questions. Sure I’d have loved gradual answers to all the meticulously placed details that were scattered in the six year tenure of the show. Women can’t have birth on the island. Maybe electromagnetic radiation from the incident, maybe Jacob magically punished the women. How did Eloise Hawking have the knowledge of Desmond’s time traveling and his original choices made in the season three episode where we see his instantaneous journey after turning the failsafe key? We could go on all day. And then, just like that, we got answers too. The numbers, the numbers….Just a way to organize flawed, lonely candidates that needed the island as much as it needed them. Chalk on a wall as Jacob said. Who is the man in black and Jacob? Just two twin brothers orphaned and summarily adopted by a woman with supernatural ability needing both a replacement and a euthanizer which whom she bestowed immortality. Simple. Yet, as she said in the episode, almost speaking to us rather than Claudia, answers to our questions will simply lead to more questions.

Well done, keep us focused on the task at hand. Remind us that your story’s intention is not to unravel the mysteries of the universe but to tell a powerful, moving, inspiring story that has a beginning and an end. And it worked, mission accomplished. Story told. Destination found. I laughed, I cried, I yelled, I pondered, I theorized, I mulled, and I exhaled during the run of this incredibly crafted vision and story. And now I’m writing, and thinking, and hoping you’re thinking too and will tell me your thoughts. Tell me why its great, tell me why its not, tell me why its both and show me how your view of how you experience art is a reflection of who you are. Or maybe its not, maybe its just a straight opinion that objectively in your mind, you’re positively convinced is irrefutable. I know one thing, Lost will absolutely do what so many of its creators and actors and fans hope for: stand the test of time. Lost will continue to be discussed, critiqued, applauded, dissected, and so forth. Someone will see it for the first time without commercials, millions of viewer hype, advertising and viral marketing and see much of themselves again or maybe for the first time. And they too will be ready to ask what you think, and they’ll want to tell you what the loved or didn’t. Can someone experience art differently seeing it in the natural course of time, staggered and patiently? Is it different experiencing it in a hurried rush? Would someone experience the catalogue of a great musical artist listening to it straight through in a day’s listen compared to someone who heard each album in its natural release year by year? I’m sure you have answers. I’m sure you have questions. Today is a snapshot of the written word I’ve created about someone else’s creation and I have no doubt that I’ll continue to evolve thoughts and ideas, praises and criticisms, and undeniable excitement from this experience. It sounds like brilliant fun, and that’s where art should take us. Thanks Lost, you found me.

The List Part I

You, Me, St. Anthony, St. Philip, Italian, LOST, The Godfather, Pink Floyd, Outdoor, Juncture, Domicile, Holidays, Poker, Basketball, Record, Technologist, Time Travel, Video Games, Wrestling, Economies of Scale, Six Feet Under, Europe, London, New York, Kingsville, Illiteracy, Same, Opposite, Film, Sound, Live, Credit, Redacted.

The Awakening

And so the words may now begin to follow. And so the sounds may also then begin to follow. And so the visual may soon begin to follow. And so...

The First Home, Jun 4 2007-Sep 25 2009