Optimistic signs in NBA labor situation

The NBA officially postponed the start of training camps Friday, but this move might as well have been announced on July 1.

The owners and players have some tough issues to work through, and there was virtually no chance the two sides would reach an agreement until a sufficient stare-down process had been completed.

A serious stare down doesn't begin until money is being lost, and the start of preseason provides the first milestone. The league canceled preseason games from Oct. 9-15, which for the Bulls meant a couple of home dates against Charlotte and Minnesota, along with a visit to Indiana.

So the doors remain shut and the lockout continues.

But there is reason to feel optimistic. In fact, the feeling here is the NBA season will be longer than the 50-game version that resulted from the 1999 lockout.

There is almost no chance the entire season gets canceled. No one wants to ruin the momentum brought by last year's Dirk Nowitzki-LeBron James morality fable.

There's hope for a solution because the players know they need to give back money. Too many small-market teams are bleeding cash and status quo figures to result in contraction.

NBA players became fabulously wealthy through the 1999 bargaining agreement, and their tax bracket won't change in these negotiations.

On the other side, owners continue to insist on a hard salary cap, according to multiple reports. But that's probably the last big bargaining chip they plan to surrender after the players make sufficient compromises.

The NBA has been operating with a soft cap, which allows teams to exceed the payroll limit to re-sign their own free agents. A hard cap would offer no such flexibility.

This is just a guess, but I suspect Bulls chairman Jerry Reinsdorf is not in favor of a hard cap, because that probably would force the team to trade players in order to sign Derrick Rose to an appropriate extension.

Under the old agreement, players received 57 percent of basketball revenue, and they seem willing to drop that ratio closer to 52 or 53 percent.

But as outlined here in July, the owners' best play would be to decrease the annual raises and reduce the number of guaranteed years on player contracts.

In the previous agreement, teams were allowed to give 8 percent raises to sign free agents from other teams and 10.5 percent raises to re-sign their own players.

This is how Washington's Rashard Lewis ended up being owed $22.1 million this season and why Atlanta's Joe Johnson is scheduled to make $24.9 million in 2015-16.

Another huge drain on expenses are the wasted salaries being paid to players who didn't pan out.

If James and Carmelo Anthony can terminate their contracts a year early to become free agents, shouldn't a team be able to do the same. If a player didn't live up to expectations, why guarantee every penny of his contract?

I also recommended abolition of the maximum salary, which has done more harm than good. Johnson or Memphis' Rudy Gay wouldn't have gotten maximum-salary extensions if such a thing didn't exist.

Likewise, shouldn't a team like Cleveland be allowed to pay whatever it wants to keep a franchise player like James in town?

The hard salary cap and percentage of revenue are being billed as key bargaining chips. But there are more meaningful issues that could put the NBA on the road to opening training camps in time to salvage most of the season.

mmcgraw@dailyherald.com