I know I've spent a lot of time lately, de-bunking the myth that owning an NBA franchise is a money-losing endeavor.  I didn't want my faithful reader to think I was neglecting my nationwide pizza odyssey, so I'll give a few updates.  I recently vacationed up in Peshtigo and had pizza at a restaurant whose name I can no longer remember.  Obviously, the pizza wasn't that great, otherwise I would've made a point of remembering the name.  The portion size was excellent, but the sauce and sausage left something to be desired.  Still decent though and further proof that it is harder to make bad pizza, than good pizza.

I then ventured back to New York for more testing.  We can safely scratch Sal's Pizzeria in Mamaroneck, NY off the list of "must-eat" pizza.  It's decent enough pizza, but I again didn't care for the sausage.  Tonight was a solid outing, as I sampled pie from Don Filippo's on Lexington Avenue, in between 87th and 88th.  This is the best pizza I've eaten since Mackie's in Marion, Illinois, but certainly not in the same league as Mackie's.  The Sicilian crust pizza was very solid and the thin crust was a pleasant surprise as well.  Would I make a special trip to eat there? No, but I'd stop by again if I was in the neighborhood.

Don Filippo's was actually my second choice of the evening and it might've turned out to be a blessing in disguise.  My first attempt was another Pizzeria on Lexington known simply as "Pizza."  I know a lot of people brag about how one can buy all kinds of food in New York at any hour of the day or night.  That does not include this place, which closed promptly at 9PM.  A closer inspection of their sign seemed to indicate when they weren't making pizzas, they may have been busy giving back and foot rubs.

Eeeeeeewwwwww!!!!!  That may have been an entirely different business, but it was still a little too close for my comfort!

 The third annual Warrior Day Golf Outing is coming up next Monday, to benefit the Nicole Ellis Foundation.  The event was started by Bo Ellis a few years ago, to honor the memory of his daughter and it has turned into a fantastic event.  This event is to Marquette basketball, what the Lombardi is to Packer football.  If you want to meet (and golf) with some of the biggest names in Marquette basketball history, this is the place to do it.

For more information on the event, please visit www.thenicoleellisfoundation.org  I'll see you in the woods!

 Once upon a time, NBA franchises could be purchased for mere millions of dollars and the Golden State Warriors were actually owned by a Wisconsin businessman.  As the NBA has grown and expanded, much has changed and the entry fee for NBA ownership has escalated accordingly.  If Senator Kohl tried to buy the Milwaukee Bucks today, he might not have enough money, but others certainly do!

The man in this picture is Chris Cohan, who just recently agreed to sell the Golden State Warriors to Joe Lacob and Peter Guber for $450 MILLION DOLLARS!  The reason that number is so remarkable, is because Cohan is widely viewed as one of the absolute worst owners in all of professional sports.  Under Cohan's leadership, the Warriors have made the NBA playoffs exactly ONE TIME in the last 16 seasons!  In spite of his total mis-management of this franchise, Golden State still has a very loyal fan base and still managed to increase in value by more than $300 million, since he acquired the franchise in 1991.  That means in spite of all the bad moves Cohan made, his franchise still increased in value by nearly $17 million per year.  Imagine how much the value of well-run franchises increases every year?

As I've mentioned before, NBA owners are not required to share the proceeds of the sale of their franchises with other NBA owners or players.  They keep it all for themselves and this brings us back to the divide between the owners and the players regarding revenue.  NBA owners claim to be projecting a net loss of $370 million for last season.  Even if that were true, a guy like Chris Cohan still saw the value of his franchise skyrocket during that same time period.  Keep in mind, these are some of the smartest, richest men in the world, so their claims and the fact that they qualify their losses by suggesting they are "net" losses is important.

The NBA Players' Association Executive Director, Billy Hunter, wisely points out that basketball-related income last season was the highest it has ever been, while player salaries decreased by 1% from the previous year, as owners saved up their resources for this summer's free agents.  If the owners want to load up their books with a bunch of expenses to keep the tax man off their back, that's understandable.  If they want to hire 50 different front office people to do the same job once handled by 10, that's their right.  If they want to change coaches and general managers like underwear, that's fine by me.  However, when the numbers are as clear as they are about the profitability of NBA ownership, they shouldn't take us all for suckers.

When you have the financial capacity and knowledge that NBA owners have, you don't get involved in a business venture as big as the NBA to lose money.  Guber and Lacob didn't pay $450 million for the Warriors because they liked the team that much.  They did it, because there were two other bidders, who also wanted a piece of this action and one of them is Larry Ellison, the sixth-richest man in the world.

  NBA commish, David Stern, recently held a press conference at the NBA Summer League, where he made some comments regarding the upcoming NBA lockout (I've just assumed the owners are going to lock the players out at this point).  I suppose it's Stern's job to be cautiously optimistic, so it doesn't surprise me to hear him say that he doesn't think the players and owners are that far apart, even when he follows that up by saying the owners want to fundamentally change the system, which would suggest a huge gap between the two sides.

Stern was asked to reconcile the massive spending owners have been engaging in the past few weeks with the claims they make that they are losing money.  Stern's response was, "They're (the owners) encouraged, praised, and otherwise driven to improve their teams. Of course, they have the capacity. It winds up driving them to unprofitability. They want to change that system so when they get driven to it, whatever they do, there won't be losses. That's all."

I put that last part in boldface print, because I think it's pretty important.  The owners are asking the players to agree to a system that guarantees profitability for the owners, regardless of how they manage or mis-manage their teams.  What other industry in this country (or any other democracy) asks employees to make sacrifices in order to guarantee profitability for the owners?  At this point, I would like to once again mention Donald Sterling, arguably the worst owner in all of professional sports (and some say the most-evil as well).  I present to you Exhibit A- http://deadspin.com/5398936/donald-sterling-continues-to-get-away-with-being-the-most-evil-man-in-sports

It would be ridiculous to assume this man would run his basketball franchise any differently than he runs his other businesses.  People like that don't change who they are at the flip of a switch and the Clippers' record would suggest as much.  Under Sterling, the Clippers have made 33-first round picks (including two #1 overall picks), but managed only two winning seasons since purchasing the team.  

I would humbly suggest that kind of leadership and management doesn't deserve to be profitable, yet that's exactly what the owners are asking of the players.  This doesn't even take into account the fact that Sterling purchased the Clippers for $20 million, has regularly spent as little as possible on the franchise, yet still watched it's value skyrocket north of $300 million.  If Sterling ever does decide to sell the franchise, he won't be sharing those proceeds with anyone (except future litigants and attorneys).

Now I'd like to re-introduce Deputy Commisher, Adam Silver-

Silver appears to be in charge of the negotiations from the owners' side, so Stern can maintain his "good cop" role both in the negotiations and to the general public.  Silver claims part of the problem with the current system is that it is based on revenue, not net revenue.  That is code for meaning the owners would like further opportunities to hide profits from the players, while watching their franchises increase in value by about $10 million per year.  Silver claims the unexpectedly high revenue numbers last season were due in large part to NBA teams spending more on marketing, promotions and additional staff. 

I'm a member of the NBA Alumni LinkedIn group, which is largely comprised of non-players and coaches and as the name implies, many of them no longer work in the NBA, but most would still jump at the chance, if it presented itself again.  Based on the timeframes in which they all lost their jobs in the NBA, I think they would all be surprised to learn that the NBA has actually been hiring additional staff lately.

Besides Silver's hollow spin, the NBA won't ever say how many people get hired and fired from NBA franchises unless it suits their needs to express economic distress. The lone exception would be the high-profile positions in the front office and on the court.  While the owners routinely cry about the expense of running an NBA franchise, it doesn't stop any of them from routinely hiring and firing coaches and other high-dollar front office personnel.  These are all six-figure positions, sometimes seven figures and it's not uncommon for franchises to be paying multiple coaches at the same time, due to the length of contracts signed.

Recent moves around the league include Steve Kerr's abrupt departure from Phoenix and the appearance that former player agent, Lon Babby, is now running the show there.  General Counsel (lead attorney) and Assistant General Manager, Jason Levien, of the Sacramento Kings also recently left and with his lawyerly background, I'm sure he is taking compensation with him on the way out.  Jeff Bower, the GM of the New Orleans Hornets also just left his job, not to mention the recent hiring (and subsequent firing/re-assingment of Kim Hughes) of Vinny Del Negro by the Clippers.  Given the nature of this business, it's safe to assume all of these moves (and countless others) all had costs associated with them in terms of buyouts and other financial parachutes.

Finally, we all recently had a glimpse of what some owners are really like behind closed doors, when the Cleveland Cavaliers' Dan Gilbert released this manifesto (http://www.cleveland.com/cavs/index.ssf/2010/07/gilberts_letter_to_fans_james.html), in which he portrayed LeBron James as a "former hero" and his departure as a "shocking act of disloyalty," and a "cowardly betrayal."  By the way, Dan Gilbert's financial fortune is most-notable through his association with Quicken Loans, but he also owns Fathead, which makes those large posters that can be stuck on walls.  After James' departure from Cleveland, Gilbert slashed the price of the James fathead to $17.41, referencing the birth year of Benedict Arnold.  Stay classy Cleveland!  Even Rev. Jesse Jackson stepped in following Gilbert's manifesto and claimed, "[Gilbert's] feelings of betrayal personify a slave master mentality. He sees LeBron as a runaway slave." 

I didn't even touch on the subject of the feuds franchises have with each other, which lead to free agent contract offerings, like Wesley Matthews' phenomenal deal, which is heavily front-loaded, to discourage Utah from matching.  Why should NBA players have to suffer because NBA owners want to pick fights with each other?  Those are just some of the people NBA players have to negotiate with and whom David Stern needs to lock in the attic, until the CBA negotiations have wrapped up.

  The signing of Dwyane Wade, LeBron James & Chris Bosh in Miami should finally sound some alarms amongst owners of professional sports franchises, but I doubt it will.  The cause for alarm is that teams in Texas & Florida have an unfair advantage in signing free agents, because they have no state income tax.  Chris Bosh previously played in Toronto, where according to this site- (http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tx/ndvdls/fq/txrts-eng.html) everything he made over $74,214 is taxed at 11.16%.  That's in addition to the 29% tax rate he is already paying on everything he makes after the first $127,021.

Ohio's state income tax code is a little more complicated, so I'm just going to give the link here- http://www.tax.ohio.gov/divisions/ohio_individual/individual/annual_tax_rates.stm and say that anything LeBron makes in Ohio above $200,000 looks like it gets taxed at 6.24%.  While that's certainly better than both Toronto and Wisconsin, it doesn't even come close to Florida's state income tax rate of 0%.

Terms of the deals haven't been finalized, but it's safe to assume all three players could have signed maximum deals worth about $125 million with their own teams.  They all claim they will be taking less than a maximum deal to play for Miami and for Bosh and James, that would mean less than $96 million.  Figuring in endorsements, we can safely round that number up to $100 million.  In that stratosphere, even 1% is some serious coin and both Texas and Florida have a significant advantage over other states in that regard, possibly as much as 10% or more.

Even if Bosh took a max deal in Canada and James took a max deal in Ohio or New York, after the tax man was finished with them, they may not be much better off financially than they will be in Florida, which is known to be one of the friendliest tax states in the country, not to mention no closer to a championship.

Does this tax situation translate into more championship teams (or at least contenders) in Texas and Florida?  Let's go back to 1994, mainly because it makes my argument look stronger.  That was the year the Houston Rockets won their first of two consecutive NBA titles.  Since then, NBA teams from income tax-free states have made 11 appearances in the NBA finals, winning seven championships.

If you combine the "Big 3" market teams (New York, Chicago, LA) with the income-tax free teams, you're looking at 23 of the 34 NBA finals teams during that span and 15 of the 17 NBA championship teams ('04 Pistons, '08 Celtics being the exceptions).  Go a little further and that trend stretches to 18 of the last 20 championships.  That doesn't bode well at all for the Bucks or any of the other NBA franchises that don't fit either criteria.  How do those teams compete for a championship?  Good question.  I hope someone asks the NBA.

Earlier this year, the NCAA attempted to ram a 96-team tournament down everyone's throats.  The outcry of opposition was about as loud one could expect and after John Feinstein publicly dismantled their claim that the expanded tournament would not result in further missed class time, the NCAA backed off.  In a blog Feinstein wrote back in February, his opening line stated, " If there is one thing you can absolutely count on from the NCAA, it is an almost unique form of slippery deceit."

Welcome to the July 4th weekend news cycle, also known as the NCAA's perfect storm weekend to announce tournament expansion.  While everyone was busy buying up bottle rockets from Fingerless Fred's fireworks stand and staking out blankets to reserve their favorite parade-watching spot, the NCAA decided to announce they were expanding the tournament next year to 68 teams.  As you can see from the screen grab above, the NCAA opted to make this announcement just after 6PM Eastern on Friday.

I don't know the Nielsen ratings for TV news are on 4th of July weekend, but they have to be amongst the lowest of the year.  A quick scan of some popular college hoops blogs also indicated these sites are done updating by about 4PM Eastern.  Even if these sites wanted to go off on the NCAA, who wants to start eating up their holiday weekend, pounding out a 2,000-word assault on this decision and who would read it if they did?

By the time people plug back into a regular cycle of news, this story will be buried by stories about idiots in the sports world, who did something stupid over the 4th of July weekend.  Well done NCAA, but you didn't fool me!  Now back to my holiday weekend.