I agree with your thoughts on the franchise tag. I hate it in the NFL and I wouldn’t want to see it in any other league. A free agent (as in, any one not serving a contract at that time) should be able to go anywhere a team would have him.

However, one thing I like that the lockout and labor negotiations did was raise awareness of the disparity between the large and small markets in the league. I would die of a heart attack in a year if I was the owner or GM of a small market NBA team like in Milwaukee, Utah or Charlotte. I think some fans still can’t see it from the owner’s side though.

Everyone says the owners wanted more rules in place to protect them from themselves. I say they wanted more rules in place to protect them from each other. Sports is an industry where no matter how intelligent you make your moves, how well you play your cards, how smart you conduct your business, you suffer when your peers do stupid moves, like say, sign Rashard Lewis to a $120 million contract. Now that the market has been set, you have to drastically overpay your quasi-All-Star guy if you want to stay competitive and have any hopes for playoffs/rings, or let him walk and get branded a cheap owner like Jordan, Sterling or Shin. You think the Hawks didn’t know they gave Joe Johnson too much money? It was either that or go back to sucking it up in the lottery every year.

It becomes even harder when you’re trying to do this in a city that doesn’t sound attractive to a 20-something year old party-loving millionaire building his “brand.”

The rebuttal to those things is usually “make smart moves, be efficient like San Antonio, OKC and Houston.” San Antonio and OKC were blessed with phenomenal, yet humble players that only come around the draft every few years, and Houston either can’t make the playoffs or get far in it from year-to-year, and suffers a serious lack of attention from not having a star on the roster. Because the NBA is a star-driven league. Any team that tries to follow the Houston model suffers a national attention drought and booties-in-seats problem.

Unfortunately, I must cut this short because my girlfriend is finally finished with her hair and makeup and ready to go, so I apologize about this abrupt end.