Raja Bell Explains The Players' Side

[Sħãlïq™]

*** Notice Raja says "product" when mentioning the players ***

 

One issue for the players is that before calculating the BRI for a season the NBA takes their operating costs out of the money pool. Bell said he understands why fans would feel players should just take their 50% and play ball, but also explains why the BRI is the big sticking point.

 

“No to a certain degree I do understand a fan’s perspective on that, but at the end of the day like – let’s use Shell Oil as a corporation. Shell Oil – whoever runs that company – makes billions and billions of dollars, right? But without the oil they make nothing. The oil is the product they are selling and the owners are selling us as the product and without that product there is nothing. You understand where we are coming from when we say 50-50 (split of revenue) isn’t exactly 50-50, when you take your operating costs off the top?

 

“50-50 is not an accurate depiction of what it breaks down to be once an owners has recouped all of his operating costs,” Bell continued. “You have to understand these owners are crafty....

 

MUST READ ON:

 

http://www.hoopsworld.com/nba-pm-is-david-stern-to-blame/

 

for those who won't bother to read the full article:

"I always go back to the essence and the basics of it. It is a lockout not a strike. We were in favor of extending the current collective bargaining agreement. Now we understood that the owners didn’t necessarily want that and we wanted to make concessions and try to make our league healthy, but it’s not us on strike."