The Kings are owned by the Maloofs, so it's not like they are hurting for cash. They just need a new stadium, they have the fanbase and they will support the team. The Sonics moved for a similar reason. It wasn't because players were making too much money.
The Sonics moved because Clay Bennett didn't want to stay in Seattle, never did. He had the investors, stadium and everything lined up and ready for a move. The only similarity that the Kings have, is the Maloofs didn't make enough revenue to be able to upgrade venues. Now the city of Sacramento, even behind their ex-NBA all-star mayor(Kevin Johnson) can't get an agreement to get tax revenues to build a new venue. This is my personal beef with the owners, they need to set themselves up to run their business and maintain loyalty. Stern also plays a big part in this, because he is the one that pushed for NBA venues to all be a certain way, and the NBA doesn't have the luxuries of MLB where you can have the classic stadiums like Wrigley.
I don't either, but at the same the NBA shouldn't have expanded so much in the late 80's and 90's. The league itself is too big and at least 4 teams need to go. I would nominate, the Wolves, Raptors, Clippers and Bobcats.
That's easy to say. You can always say, cut any team, just don't cut mine.
I agree for the most part, my only problem is the owners are basically saying it's the players fault that the league is in the situation that it is in. This type of hyperbole and misinformation gets the casual fans against the players when they are who they come to see. Do they need a new salary cap structure? Maybe, but not the way the owners want it. Something more fair spread out, yeah, but not just royally fucking the players with no lube.
You say the players million dollar contracts (that they deserve btw), like it's a bad thing they get so much. No one says anything about the owners BILLIONS of dollars that they have and continue to make. If the fans don't come to support the teams, they don't deserve to have one. IMO. I'd lie to see more Joe Work-a-jobs at the games, but tell the owners to lower ticket prices a little bit.
The owners earned their billions of dollars too. If you think they made their money by owning a basketball team, you're greatly mistaken. If anything, the league should weed out bad owners, but at no point, does an owner or a group of owners have an obligation to give charity to million dollar basketball players. They have many other obligations, as well as employing a great deal more people than anything the players do with their money.
Not that is any of our business as to how they spend their money. The economic law(not theory or concept) of cardinal utility explains how the owners are no more greedy than the players. If anything, the players give far less value than the owners do. If every NBA player was paid per hour of playing time at 1million per hour, per avg viewer(end user), they make over $190 per user and per hour of play(based on a 82 game season+16 floating games pre/post). Not even actors make that much per hour. Nobody makes that kind of money per utility. Per person, per the same utility curve, and per end-user, the owners make $4.44 per hour(pooling from Cuban, Allen, and Rheinsdorf to get an avg to make it fair for comparison.) I only added the actual value, but if you want to give the players a 40 hour work week for training, each fan would spend $21 per hour to have NBA basketball. Where does this money come from? Do you not understand how much of an advantage the players are at, and they should be no doubt for being the athletes that they are. But I have concluded that it is absolutely impossible for the owners to be more greedy than the players. Not to mention, the players do make excellent money, there is no reason for them not to compile their earnings as well.