So much for balance: NBA players still calling their shots

Before the NBA lockout began in July, Chris Paul and Dwight Howard had the leverage to wriggle out of their current small-market, low-revenue teams and move to the major-market, high-revenue franchises of their choosing. Owners of those smaller franchises hated it, and bettering their chances of keeping the Pauls and Howards of the league was their goal.

Now the lockout is all but over, the NBA is set to get back to business, the schedule is days away from being finalized ? and Chris Paul and Dwight Howard have the leverage to wriggle out of their small-market teams and move to major-market ones.

So, shutting down the league for five months and starting the season two months late accomplished ? what, exactly?

Well, it didn?t accomplish that. The so-called LeBron effect, the player-generated construction of supposed super-teams, is still in play. New Orleans, owned and operated by the league for the time being, can?t hold onto Paul any better now than it could have on June 30. Orlando is still in a lose-lose situation with Howard, just as it was before the lockout.

Paul reportedly wants to go to the Knicks, to complete the Big Apple version of Miami?s Big Three, with Carmelo Anthony and Amare Stoudemire. Howard has been ticketed for the Lakers seemingly forever?or at least since he started seriously and publicly hedging about extending with Orlando.

To hear both the hardliners and David Stern intimate during the lockout, this level of player self-determination would be the NBA?s downfall, and the very survival of the New Orleanses and Orlandos depended on giving such franchises more power, and giving both the players and the mega-franchises less.

Millions of dollars and acres of goodwill were sacrificed for this as the sides dug in. The salary cap was hardened. Prohibitive luxury taxes were added. All sorts of protection for teams trying to hold onto free agents were created. This was done in the name of ?competitive balance,? on the court and at the bank.

Maybe in time, there will be balance in terms of how the owners split the pot among themselves. For certain, they got a much bigger pot to split?that was, after all, the goal that really mattered, taking back around seven percent of the revenue from the players, under all the pretenses they sold to the public (which the public swallowed whole, as usual).

But in the first few weeks of post-lockout life, big-name players are still showing every sign of calling their own shots. Their ability to do so hasn?t been curtailed at all.

If so, the basketball world would be talking about how the Hornets could build on the surge from last season under new front-office management, a new coach and their All-Star point guard?not to mention, talking about the buyers who would try snatch up a team with such a valuable asset and a bright future.

Orlando? Less talk about a second all-universe big man forced to bolt (after Shaq 15 years ago), more talk about how the Magic can resume their staredown with their loaded, star-studded rivals to the south for Eastern Conference supremacy and, as an aside, Florida bragging rights.

And it wouldn?t be just those teams, either. A year ago, Utah was in a bind over its inability to sell Deron Williams on a long-term extension. The Jazz had to package Williams to the Nets just before the trade deadline. Naturally, Williams? agent is now telling reporters that Williams will not sign an extension with the Nets, either.

Guess where the rumor mill has Williams headed if he does opt out of his contract after this season? The Lakers.

Now, in the real world, the Lakers and Knicks can?t get everybody. (Even more real: they can?t do much to get anybody, particularly the Knicks, because all the legal and financial wrangling of the lockout didn?t result in them getting new ownership or a better roster.)

Also in the real world, teams like the Nets and Clippers wouldn?t be treated by anybody as ?small market? and at a drastic competitive disadvantage?their only disadvantage is their inability to take advantage of where they are. (Save this paragraph in a few years for when Blake Griffin bolts poor, helpless Los Angeles.)

With all that said, though, the power and leverage in the NBA hasn?t seemed to have shifted in any way so far. Players had money taken out of their pockets, but they still have the right and opportunity to take their talents wherever they want when they've earned that contractual right.

And the big-markets teams that want them appear to have no more impediments in getting them now than they did before. If you?re looking for the next superteam, it won?t be in Charlotte, Toronto or Minnesota; the coasts are still your best bets.

Good strategy, NBA. Looks like you changed very little during your five-month blockade?unless you count the bridges you burned.

Source: http://aol.sportingnews.com/nba/story/2011-12-03/so-much-for-balance-nba-players-still-calling-their-shots

mark kelly mark kelly jeff goldblum uc berkeley ohio state basketball annie annie