The first thing to say is that although this movie is set in the NBA and invited several NBA stars for interviews, the description of the inner workings of the NBA is basically unrealistic. Please do not substitute the perspective of prying into the inner workings of the NBA It would be better to see this movie as an alternate-world sports movie.
1. Negotiation of labor-management agreement
In the movie, the reason why the NBA is shut down is because of the breakdown of the collective bargaining agreement between the players union and the league. Labor-management agreement negotiation refers to an agreement signed by the employer (the NBA president and 30 club owners) and the labor (NBA Players Union) to establish various rights and interests of both parties, including player contracts, player transactions, league income distribution, Draft and salary cap regulations. The biggest differences in collective bargaining agreements over the years have generally been about the salary of players, the guarantee period of player contracts and the team's salary cap. The NBA and the players union signed a new collective bargaining agreement in 2017 for a period of seven years, but both parties have the option to opt out of the contract after the 2022-23 season, so the lockout in the movie won't happen until at least 2022.
2. NBA lockout
When the negotiations are not reached as scheduled, the players union will take the lead in strike, which also leads to the lockout. Once the lockout occurs, it will cause huge losses to the league. There have been five NBA shutdowns in the history of the NBA. The most recent one was in 2011. Due to the impact of the financial crisis, the NBA wanted to cut player salaries, shorten the length of player contracts, implement non-guaranteed contracts, and introduce "hard salary cap" clauses (NBA currently It is a soft salary cap, which means that the team can sign players without salary restrictions, but when the total contract salary exceeds the salary cap, it is subject to luxury tax. In the case of a hard salary cap, the team must maintain the total contract salary of the players within the salary cap. below) to maintain the interests of the league and team owners. As negotiations broke down, the NBA went into a 149-day hiatus.
3. The impact of the league lockout on players
The lockout of the league has different meanings for different players. For example, the superstars in the league, such as James, Curry, etc., need to obtain the maximum contract that they can get as a superstar through labor-management negotiations. Allows the team to give a player with 7-9 years of service a starting salary directly at a maximum salary of 35% of the salary cap for 4-5 years, allowing Curry to sign a 5-year 201 million contract in 2017 The dollar's big contract, Paul and James signed a four-year contract of 160 million and 153 million in 18 years.
But for the middle and bottom players, the lockout is very risky. Because wages are paid on a monthly basis, players cannot participate in games during the suspension period, and the team will not pay wages to players. Big-name players can still rely on endorsements and investments to earn off-court income during the lockout period, but the average players rely on playing football to eat and carry NBA contracts, so they cannot participate in other professional leagues. As for the rookie rookie in the movie, due to his average strength, the impact of the suspension on him is more important because he lost his playing time in his rookie season and did not have the opportunity to prove himself. Competing with the next rookie for playing time, if they don't meet expectations, this last-round rookie may leave the league with layoffs.
Of course, once the employer compromises, the new labor-management agreement is beneficial to all players, but big-name players can benefit more from it.
4. National Players Association (NBPA)
The NBA Professional Players' Union is the longest established trade union organization among the four major professional sports leagues in North America. You could even say that the NBA is the league with the highest level of player earnings outside of the European Football League. The current chairman of the players union is Rockets player Chris Paul, and other members include first vice-chairman LeBron James, treasurer James Jones, vice-chairmen Anthony, Curry, Andre Iguodala, Pau Gasol, Pau Gasol, Rhett Templedown and Anthony Tolliver. They will also receive corresponding wages when they work in the players' union, and Paul, the president of the union, will have a salary of about $5 million a year.
5. NBA broadcast contract
Another backdrop to the breakdown of negotiations in the film is the NBA's new network contract. It is believed that this should be the creation of the screenwriter based on the new NBA TV contract in 2015. The NBA implemented new broadcast contracts with ESPN and TNT in 2015, with a total value of up to 24 billion US dollars, which means that the NBA can generate 2.66 billion US dollars in revenue every year from the broadcast fee alone. The NBA's annual broadcast fee was only $930 million. Contrary to the movie, the labor negotiations in 2016 were extremely smooth, thanks to the huge revenue brought by the new NBA broadcast contract.
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The following are some of the complaints that I was extremely disappointed and impulsive when I just watched it. . .
Putting the movie into reality to put it in layman's terms is: the NBA is in the lockout period of labor-management negotiations (there have been five times in NBA history), the Knicks' Ntilikina and Knox (don't know, right? Don't know? By the way, the two rookies in the film are as famous as they are in reality) After quarreling on Twitter, they singled out at a charity event to attract attention. The two's agents then violated the rules by hosting a Netflix live-streamed street match with tickets up to $1,000. As a result, this wild ball game with the highest ticket price of one thousand dollars and two rookies who had just entered the league and had not even played a professional game took the rich owners of the 30 teams of the world's top 100 leagues under negotiation. I was frightened by the players' union presidents who held hundreds of millions of contracts and an annual salary of 40 million US dollars (the current players' union chairman Paul, first vice-chairman James, and vice-chairman Curry all have annual salary of more than 40 million US dollars) and stopped immediately. Labor negotiations to end the suspension period? ! are you kidding me……
I just stayed up late at the trade deadline and I really vomited blood after watching this movie, and I can only imagine how the writers came up with this script. After all, there has been a lot of scandal and gossip in the league over the past few years. The 76ers manager's Twitter incident, Durant's Twitter account, Leonard using his mother and uncle as an agent to blackmail the team into trades, and Downs Butler's team tearing at each other, these events that fans are familiar with are regarded as It was regarded as a kind of curiosity and became the "explosive insider" of this movie. But a player's agent has the most influence in the real world, and it affects one or two transactions. How can a lockout that occurs once in more than a decade be affected by the farce of one or two unknown rookies. As a basketball fan and movie fan, I really can't tolerate such a screenwriter's obscenity and unprofessional script...
I can understand that the screenwriter wants to criticize certain social phenomena in the United States today by attacking the business environment of professional sports leagues, but when he touches a professional field that he does not understand all of a sudden, should he do his homework? For many fans who are not clear about the commercial operation of the NBA, the film is completely misleading, and the film also invited several NBA stars, making the film more professional on the surface. That's why I can't accept this movie.
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