Couple Things...

I've been lagging with this site for a few days. Strange machinations have been going on. My work schedule has changed, for the better now that Corrie works a white collar job. We spent an evening with my Auntie and Uncle in Santa Monica (another LA beach city) and got to watch their fireworks show (they have it early to combat gang violence). We even went to the centennial birthday party for the Long Beach Port.

I'd like to pass on a quick few words about sports. The scene is getting pretty ugly out here with Frank McCourt and the Dodgers. Frank somehow bought the Dodgers with a credit card or leveraged debt or some other thing that lets fake rich people pretend to be wealthy, and now needs to declare bankruptcy in order to get a loan to make payroll. He's broken up the team's holdings into at least twenty-eight shell companies, all feeding off the team in some way or another. He's in Rule or Ruin mode, and the days grow dark for fans of one of baseball's cornerstone franchises in the second largest market. McCourt has the ability to go beyond the title of "bad owner"; he has the ability to screw up the Dodgers for a few decades.

The NBA owners, maybe feeling jealous of the NFL owners, have locked out their players. All joking aside, the NBA's situation is different than the NFL. In the NFL, the owners aren't satisfied with their share of the pie, and don't like the CBA (collective bargaining agreement) they signed just five years ago, and want the players to give up some cash. They have a better chance to get a deal done and play some games this year than their compatriots in basketball.

While owners like Ralph Wilson, of the NFL's Buffalo Bills, cry about small markets, the usual response is "be a better owner", since the small market complaints crumble is you look at Green bay and Pittsburgh, two historically classy and winning franchises.

I heard one problem facing NBA owners is that the league grew too fast and teams were overvalued, being sold for far too much. I suppose if you bought a team for $20 million and are getting an annual return of $2 million, as an owner you say, "swell." If, though, as the newer crop of owners have done, you buy a team for $300 million, and are receiving $2 million in returns, you might say, "HOLY CRAP! I can't even pay the interest of the leveraged debt that allowed me to buy the team in the first place!" This sounds like the case for twenty-two of the thirty franchises.

The NBA owners do not share revenue like the owners in the NFL or in baseball, a thing that the rich teams (Knicks, Lakers, et al) don't want a part of.

Whatever, I say. An owner should make sure that when they open up their McDonald's that the neighborhood it's in isn't a high-end 'hood populated by wealthy vegan housewives with tennis instructor fetishes. The players, though, are demanding an increase in an already astounding average annual salary. I generally side with labor, but this situation makes me wince. After the most intriguing season for the NBA in who knows how long, they are about to explode all that good will.

Go figure.