Probably, but that would be a lost cause.
The other side of the coin could be however, that the owners could wonder if they might ever be in a position for the league to sanction them also for who knows what reason. Again it is an interesting circumstance to observe.
The Clippers payroll is set to be 73 million next year. NBA salaries are guaranteed, so if he takes the position that the contracts are still binding he's still on the hook for the full 73 million. Does he have 73 million that he can blow on that? How about 57 million for next year or 50 for the next?
He's worth $1.9B. So yes, he can blow that much.
He's worth that including the estimated value of the Clippers franchise. He doesn't necessarily have 226 million in cash lying around. I doubt he'd be willing to liquidate a ton of personal assets to pay a bunch of black people to sit on the couch instead of playing basketball (probably his personal nightmare).
no, but I was discussing league action rather than player action.
The problem is you aren't talking about preventing people from making a living. You are talking about the owner still abiding by the terms of the contract. The players would thus still be making a living. It's a far different example then a non-compete case.
Pretty easy for them to argue that their careers would still suffer potentially irreparable harm by being forced to sit for a year plus, and they would be a third party, not part of the dispute between Sterling and the NBA. I'd be surprised if a judge buried them like that.
Who would force them to sit for a year? Plus their action would be against the league not Sterling.
If the NBA declared them free agents after voting out the Clippers, it was suggested Sterling might seek an injunction preventing them from playing for the remainder of their contracts because they would still be under contract to the Clippers Organization (even though it would no longer be an NBA franchise) in a power play to screw the NBA out of two all stars.
The NBA won't declare them free agents. The most likely scenario is they take control of the team and spearhead the sale to someone who will take over the franchise as is. That's basically what the league did to the NO Hornets and MLB did with the Expos.
Precisely. That is why I say the NBA could place themselves in a responsible party position by their actions. If the players were deemed free agents it would be done by the NBA and it is possible that the could incurr a liability if some of the players didn't land a job. They could potentially place the blame for being unemployed at the feet of the actions of the commissioner and the league. Not saying it would happen but there are some slippery slope nuances in all this.
In that case there's precedent for them being able to do that and it makes perfect sense. I wish they wouldn't let Magic be the owner though. I think he has unclean hands in this deal.
If that were the case basketball players on a bad team would just go play for a good team and say that their careers would suffer irreparable harm being forced to play on a terrible team. If you're expect a court to not enforce an enforceable contract you are barking up the wrong tree.
I think it remains to be seen if a contract to play basketball is still enforceable if the team can't provide any basketball for them to play, turning it into a contract not to play basketball. Your "bad team" analogy is apples and oranges. If you are doing your job, making a living in you're profession, saying you don't like the conditions is one thing. Not being allowed to work in your field is another thing entirely and you are losing a quantifiable thing, time on the job, not some nebulous "quality" issue.
They can still play basketball. They could practice just as much as any other NBA team.
I refer you to Allen Iverson on the difference between practice and games. That would be like telling a programmer he could write strings of meaningless code but no programs or telling a welder that they could weld random pieces of metal together but not anything that had value.
