NBA lockout could be a long one

This isn’t exactly going out on a limb, but I’m going to predict a greater portion of the next NBA season will be wiped out by a lockout than in the NFL.

The main issue in NFL negotiations is deciding how to divide the giant pile of money between players and owners. Finding a compromise before September doesn’t sound too difficult.

The NBA has more serious issues, and it seems as though both sides are digging in for a long fight. Many owners have struggled with the economic downturn, while the players should be better prepared for the loss of paychecks than they were in the 1998-99 lockout, which stretched into February.

Many of the NBA’s problems fall under the heading of too many players whose contributions don’t match their hefty salaries. But the biggest overall issue is lack of economic parity.

Big-market teams such as the Bulls, Los Angeles Lakers and New York Knicks have been very profitable, according to reports by Forbes Magazine, while many smaller-market teams are struggling badly.

Illustrating the disparity is simple. Once the Bulls sell their season tickets, if they can get roughly 500,000 fans to attend one game a year, the United Center is full.

In a metropolitan area of 8 million people, that goal shouldn’t be difficult to achieve. In Memphis, with barely a million people, it’s a challenge.

On top of that, larger-market teams can charge higher ticket prices, they have more potential sponsors, and they receive greater revenue for local television and radio rights.

In the real world, a company would be free to move from Memphis to New York if it wanted to reach more customers. In the NBA, it’s not so easy. Grizzlies owner Michael Heisley wanted to move his team to the Naperville/Aurora area and was unsuccessful.

What the NBA needs is more revenue sharing, something the NFL has done for nearly 50 years, to help level the playing field.

It doesn’t appear that ownership has made that a high priority in labor negotiations. Commissioner David Stern’s stance has been if the league is losing money as a whole, it cannot revenue-share its way to profitability.

That’s certainly true. But if the owners’ proposed solution is simply to institute a hard salary cap, set low enough so the smallest market teams can turn a profit, the lockout figures to last a long time.

It’s possible the owners could throw contraction on the table if the players don’t agree to a hard cap. The league already owns the New Orleans Hornets, while the Sacramento Kings tried to move to Anaheim. So there are two logical candidates already, but other teams are struggling economically.

During a recent media briefing, Stern talked about a “flexible” salary cap, which the players said amounts to a hard cap.

The NBA has been using the so-called soft salary cap, which allows teams to exceed the cap to re-sign their own players. Even though the Bulls already are over the cap with about $60 million in salary commitments, under the current rules they still would be able to give Derrick Rose a maximum extension.

When it comes to runaway salaries, rules can’t prevent every bad contract, but changes can be made.

There are several recent examples of players collecting roughly $20 million in a season when they did little or nothing on the court, from Steve Francis to Stephon Marbury to Tracy McGrady. Less expensive non-players, such as Eddy Curry or Jerome James, are even more prevalent.

One simple change that would help is cutting the yearly raises way down from the current 8 percent for players switching teams and 10.5 percent for players resigning with their own teams. How about 1 or 2 percent?

It makes little sense that Miami can split $43 million of cap space between Dwyane Wade, LeBron James and Chris Bosh, but by 2015-16 those three players could make a combined $65 million.

In the NBA, most contracts are fully guaranteed. Here’s another idea: In any contract four years or longer, the final year becomes a mutual option. A player would be free to opt out and test free agency, while on the other side the team could cut loose underperforming players.

Those problems should be easy to solve. Getting the players to accept a hard salary cap at a much lower number than the current soft cap? That probably will take some heavy compromise or a long work stoppage.

Ÿmmcgraw@dailyherald.com. Get the latest Bulls news via Twitter by following McGrawDHBulls.