Slugline: Notable NBA players, union representatives and Billy
Hunter argue over whether to accept the 'Deliverance' ultimatum issued
by the Owners... but are they alone?
INT. BACK ROOM, NEW YORK HOTEL -- DAY
INT. BACK ROOM, NEW YORK HOTEL -- DAY
Deep burgundy carpeting with walls of wood paneling and
drapes obscuring any view outside. Dim lighting, shadows
hiding the corners of the room- are they empty?
Seated around the thirty-foot-long, oak table are:
The PLAYERS ASSOCIATION REPRESENTATIVES from each NBA team,
DEREK FISHER- 30s, declining skills on the court but
rightfully respected off of it, president of the Players
Association,
BILLY HUNTER- late60s/early 70s, formerly an NFL player and
United States Attorney, now the executive director of the
Players Association,
and an ASSORTMENT of notable NBA players.
Hunter clears his throat.
BILLY HUNTER
In the last collective bargaining
agreement, you players hauled in
fifty-seven percent of all
basketball related income. The
owners' offer is now fifty
percent. What's a seven percent
drop mean? Over ten years, even
dropping just one point loses you
DEREK FISHER
That's four of Rashard Lewis...
THE PLAYERS IN UNISON
Damn!
DEREK FISHER
...or 238 of our boy Luc over here.
EVERYONE ERUPTS in laughter...
DWIGHT HOWARD (20s, faster than a speeding bullet, more
powerful than a locomotive, able to leap tall buildings in a
single bound) falls off his chair and tumbles around like
Cristiano Ronaldo taking a dive. (That's sort of Howard's
trademark, to overreact in the most look-at-me fashion
imaginable.)
...everyone except for LUC RICHARD MBAH A MOUTE (20s, one of
the NBA's best defenders, owner of a Player Efficiency
Rating -- a rating that hardly includes defense -- of only
.5 less than Lewis last season) who hangs his head,
dejected.
BILLY HUNTER
As it stands, Stern and the owners
are asking you to give up 3.4
billion dollars. In-
ZAZA PACHULIA
Hang on.
Pachulia (20s, a hard-worker and serviceable enough, a bit
brash and petulant but in the AJ Pierzynski endearing to his
teammates sort of way) scribbles furiously on his legal pad-
ZAZA PACHULIA
Just checking your math on that...
(finishes)
Pssh. If you round up.
BILLY HUNTER
Uhh... continuing, they're also
wanting to implement a harder
salary cap which would restrict
player movement in the name of
competitive balance, something that
won't be achieved. And instead of
implementing an NFL-style revenue
sharing program, which the owners
selfishly can't agree on, they've
decided to try to take everything
from you players. Gentleman, this
is a bad deal, and to even bring it
to our membership, to even give
this ultimatum any consideration,
would be a colossal misstep. It'd
be the Bay of Pigs all over again.
Blank stares greet Hunter from around the table.
BILLY HUNTER
The Bay of Pigs? The CIA-
KOBE BRYANT
We meet the appropriate threshold
of intellectual capital to get that
reference, Bill. We just didn't
feel it was worth responding to.
That was one hundred yards ago.
Bryant- 30s, not as good as Michael Jordan, already has his
championships, a bit of an aloof jerk.
BILLY HUNTER
It was forty years ago, Kobe.
KOBE BRYANT
Were any of us players alive for
that? No? Then so what.
Kurt Thomas (39) nods with great enthusiasm.
Beat.
LEBRON JAMES
So we've already agreed to take
fifty-two percent?
James- 20s, not as good as Kobe, has zero championships but
acts like he's already won not five, not six, not seven, but
at least eight rings, quite the prima donna.
BILLY HUNTER
That's right.
ZAZA PACHULIA
You're saying we already agreed to
lose 2.4 billion dollars over ten
years?
KEVIN GARNETT
Check out the big brain on Brad!
Garnett- 30s, probably one of the thirty best players ever,
a mushroom cloud laying motherfucker, turns into Superfly
TNT and the Guns of the Navarone when even slightly annoyed.
Pachulia furrows his brow and stares dead ahead at Garnett.
ZAZA PACHULIA
You're making fun of me?
GARNETT
No.
ZAZA PACHULIA
Okay then.
Order is restored.
GARNETT
But if I was-
PAUL PIERCE
(quiet)
Relax, KG. Just blindside him
walking out of here like last time.
PIERCE- 30s, has adapted his game as he's grown older,
survived being stabbed, hard to dislike.
ZAZA PACHULIA
What?
PAUL PIERCE
Nothing.
Pierce and Garnett bump fists.
BILLY HUNTER
I know 2.4 billion sounds like a
lot, but we thought a compromise on
BRI to save both the season and
your pay for this season-
MATT BONNER
'Your pay for this season'? You
thought throwing away 2.4 billion
dollars for us to be paid what the
contracts we signed guaranteed us
for this season was fair? No side
comes away from negotiations happy,
unless you're Rashard Lewis, of
course, but COME ON.
Bonner- a redhead in the NBA. (Nothing else to add: he's a
ginger in the NBA. Imagine all the jokes and chants he
heard on the court growing up. He must be a badass with a
chip on his shoulder the size of LeBron's ego.)
BILLY HUNTER
It's not that simple, Matt. The
league is saying-
MATT BONNER
Don't even start with their losing
money propaganda. The average NBA
franchise has increased their
valuation over 160 million dollars
in the last ten years. 4.8 BILLION
cumulatively. Even if the league
really lost the 340 million they're
claiming they did one year ago,
and even if we, as a thought
experiment, had them losing that
same 340 million each year for the
last decade, they're still clearing
BILLY HUNTER
You don't think I know this?
MATT BONNER
This has nothing to do with any
structural problems or our
salaries, salaries that have only
league-wide revenues have
increased. No, Billy, this crisis
is purely a case of the owners
wanting more because they think
they can pull off taking more!
Hell, 250 million of their stated
losses last year is from teams
"amortizing certain assets related
to the purchase of the teams" and
that lets teams claim the value of
their franchise as a loss over a
period of fifteen years! So not
only are they not losing the money
they say they're losing, but
they're asking us to subsidize
their purchase! We don't get any
their franchise as a loss over a
period of fifteen years! So not
only are they not losing the money
they say they're losing, but
they're asking us to subsidize
their purchase! We don't get any
of the profit when a team is sold
but they're expecting us to pay for
owners buying a team? The Wizards
sold for seventy-percent above
Forbes' valuation of 322 million!
Where's our cut of that? Forbes
had the Warriors valued at 363
million last year and they were
sold for 450 million!
BILLY HUNTER
You don't think I know this!? I
was out in front of this from the
MATT BONNER
Then how is Ken Berger writing
the filth he's writing without
any sort of repudiation from you!?
Bonner's face has turned as red as his hair-
MATT BONNER
(continuing)
How are you not out in front of the
cameras going all Ross Perot with
charts and a damned works cited
page? Oh, that's right, because
you're too busy already giving them
two billion some odd dollars when
they're not losing any money to
begin with. You are just THE
WORST.
DEREK FISHER
Hey, Matt, easy man, Billy has
been-
BILLY HUNTER
No, Derek. He's right. I -- you,
me, the executive leadership --
we've been too quick to acquiesce
to the owners and their demands.
Even though we know Stern and the
lot of them are lying through their
teeth, we've been negotiating with
them under the hope they actually
care about the upcoming season and
the fanbase that just experienced
one of the best seasons ever.
We've agreed to give up billions of
dollars not in the name of doing
what's right or playing a fair part
but in the name of pragmatism and
placation. And in return, all
we've gotten from them are more
demands and ultimatums, each one
more unreasonable and more punitive
than the one before it.
A solemn Hunter looks around the table. He sees the bowed
heads, defeated faces and deflated hopes of the players.
His own face mirrors what lays before him.
BILLY HUNTER
But you all need to listen to me,
and listen to me now:
Hunter undergoes a transformation: where he was meek and
full of despair is replaced by only the anger and
empowerment one can have upon being objectively wronged-
BILLY HUNTER
(continuing)
THAT. CHANGES. NOW. Ohhh,
Daaaavvvvvvviiiiiid?
The players around the table look at each other-
From the darkness in the far corner emerges a figure-
BILLY HUNTER
Gentlemen, may I present to you
David Boies.
DAVID BOIES- 60s, one of the best trial lawyers that's ever
lawyered, represented Napster, challenged California's 'Prop
8' gay marriage ban and won (although the judgment was
stayed by the Ninth Circuit Court), donated $5 million to a
hospital for a new emergency room, might actually have a set
of respectable principles.
Every player is expressionless...
...except for KEVIN DURANT (20s, both laid-back and
charismatic, a natural leader, what Tim Thomas would've been
as an offensive player if Tim Thomas actually cared about
basketball) who leaps up and pumps his fists.
Every player looks at him with the same confused look.
KEVIN DURANT
Really? You guys never saw HBO's
'Recount'?
CARLOS BOOZER
That was the one with Pacino as
Kevorkian, right? The one that was
both a great portrait of a pioneer
for patient rights and a compelling
telling of one man's journey to
ease suffering and stay one step
ahead of a reactionary government
stubbornly refusing to grant dying
people dignity?
Boozer- late 20s, as clueless playing defense as he is about
remembering which HBO film was which.
KEVIN DURANT
Damnit, Carlos, that was 'You Don't
Know Jack'. 'Recount' was about
the 2000 Presidential Election and
how Florida election officials and
the Republican party conspired to
ensure recount efforts were
destabilized through baseless
accusations and outright sabotaging
and also the wrongful suppression
of voting rights for thousands of
African-Americans. Starring Kevin
Spacey.
CARLOS BOOZER
Oh. Then no, I didn't see it. But
'You Don't Know Jack'? Shit was
tight.
AMAR'E STOUDEMIRE
I don't know, guys.
Stoudemire- late 20s, the basketball equivalent of a weight
lifter who only works his glory muscles.
KEVIN DURANT
You saw 'Recount'?
AMAR'E STOUDEMIRE
Nah, I- well, no, I didn't see it,
but...
Stoudemire sizes Boies up. Boies, perplexed, just squints at
him-
AMAR'E STOUDEMIRE
(continuing)
...he doesn't look... like me, know
what I mean?
The table is silent. An actual cricket might have chirped.
AMAR'E STOUDEMIRE
Like, he's not... LIKE ME, you know
what I mean?
DEREK FISHER
Amar'e, I can assure you, none of
us have any idea what you mean.
AMAR'E STOUDEMIRE
You guys are really going to make
me say it, aren't you?
DEREK FISHER
Say what?
Stoudemire, who has Hebrew roots through his mother,
hesitates-
AMAR'E STOUDEMIRE
He's... fine. He doesn't look like
a Jew.
Everyone at the table who doesn't firmly press the palm of
their hands to their foreheads rolls their eyes and GROANS.
DEREK FISHER
Oh Jesus Christ-
KEVIN GARNETT
Don't blaspheme!
PAUL PIERCE
Goddamnit, Kevin-
KEVIN GARNETT
I said don't do that!
BILLY HUNTER
Gentlemen!
Silence.
BILLY HUNTER
(continuing)
What I propose... we serve notice
of disclaimer and then we go and
hit Stern and the owners with the
mother of all antitrust suits.
With David here, you know what? It
gives us a chance.
DAVID BOIES
The owners have been acting as if
they have all the leverage. Which,
given their apparent lack of giving
a damn about actually playing the
what once was upcoming season,
appears to be true. But this suit,
the threat of us winning in court
and getting a massive damage
payout, should be enough to, if not
give us the leverage, at least make
them open to actually negotiating
in good faith. This suit opens
them up to a world of risk that
they just cannot ignore. I think
this ordeal gets solved at the
negotiating tables. Not in front
of a judge.
JARED DUDLEY
...but what if they refuse sitting
down with us? I'm Jared, by the-
Dudley- 20s, an energetic player, an emerging auteur, a
large personality, a good guy for the locker room.
DAVID BOIES
Jared Dudley, born the tenth of
July, 1985. 2007 ACC Player of the
Year, drafted twenty-second overall
by the Charlotte Bobcats, traded to
the Phoenix Suns on the eighteenth
of December, 2008. Captures candid
videos of his teammates and often
uploads them to the internet as a
presentation by JMZ, a somewhat, I
guess, decent play on TMZ, kind of.
JARED DUDLEY
Whoa.
DAVID BOIES
Mister Dudley, I'm not that big of
a fan of the NBA. If I'm being
honest, basketball doesn't do much
for me. By extension, I'm not a
fan of yours. It's not personal,
it's just that your brand of ice
cream isn't one I'd scoop into my
cone. I'm not a fan of yours, but
I know your personal information
because it's my job to know every
piece of information about this
whole sordid mess that there is to
or can ever be known. I learned
all this about you, and the same
for every player in this room, on
the cab ride over, when my
assistant read me all of your
wikipedia pages. Read TO me, not
read BY me, because I'm dyslexic,
and it's easier for me to process
new information through auditory
measures. This also means I don't
have the luxury of notes to help me
when in trial. Since I'm the best
at what I do, feel free to assume I
can memorize anything, and that not
only is my brain capable of
memorizing forests-worth of legal
histories and precedents and case
particulars and nuances, but it's
also capable of taking everything I
have memorized -- a feat that,
truly, very few can do even half as
well as me -- and then put it all
into a coherent, persuasive
argument in a courtroom -- a feat
that even fewer can dream of. So
what happens if they don't sit down
with us at the table? They get me,
in court, is what happens.
KEVIN GARNETT
Shit Negro, that's all you had to
say!
This is Great.
ReplyDeleteThis was well done. Well done indeed.
ReplyDeleteBut, speaking from experience, all the great information you presented will be ignored by most people despite the creative presentation.
this was the best nba piece i've read probably ever....awesome!
ReplyDeleteNice work, creative, funny but solid facts and information rolled in ... you got skilz kid!!! both as a writer(fiction or otherwise) and content.
ReplyDeleteKeep it up.
So great! I love the Intellectual Capital part.
ReplyDeletedope. best breakdown i've seen.
ReplyDeleteguess i'm the meat head of the bunch, i watched that KG pick like 15 times. i miss B ball. nba.
ReplyDeleteAll I can is thanks for the kind words.
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