Micky Arison is not the kind of person, who loves to be in the spotlight, but when he does speak out, there are never any inhibitions. A month after the NBA lockout ended, the Miami Heat owner has opened up on his take
on the new CBA ....
Miami Heat owner Micky Arison has revealed that he voted against the NBA’s new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA).
Talking to NBA.com, Arison said that although he casted a “protest vote” against the CBA but was one of the owners rooting for the lockout to end early.
"While I did everything I could behind the scenes and some not so behind the scenes, to get playing by Christmas, when you come down to it, financially ... it's a tough financial deal for us," Arison said as reported by NBA.com.
Arison was always believed to be one of the owners supporting an end to the lockout even though NBA Commissioner David Stern kept threatening to wipe out the season if the players did not agree to the owners demands. Owners initially
wanted a whole host of changes in the system that included salary rollbacks, shorter and non-guaranteed contracts and a much larger share in the Basketball Related Income or BRI.
When it became clear that the players will only give in on only one of the two points of contention, system issues or the money, owners choose the money. They wanted to level the playing field for teams around the league as well,
and to do that they ended up taxing teams higher through the revenue sharing deals.
That didn’t go down well with Arison.
"Particularly the revenue-sharing piece of it, the way it's structured. For us to have to pay revenue sharing to larger-market teams was disturbing. And we will. So that was a kind of protest vote." He said.
Arison’s Miami Heat were one of the few teams that reported a profit last season. Now, because of the NBA owners choosing a larger share of the wealth over competitive balance, he will end up paying more for other team’s mistakes.
"While the original intent of the owners was to have a hard cap, which would have basically levelled the playing field, instead because of players' refusal to accept that they just made it extremely expensive," Arison said.
He only voted against the CBA though when it was already confirmed that it would pass. He had wanted the lockout to be over much earlier and even hinted his intentions through his twitter account, something that earned him a big
fine from Commissioner Stern.
Micky’s activities on the trade market last summer are believed to have been a cause of the stringent stance taken up by the NBA during the lockout. The Heat had formed a power trio in Miami with super stars LeBron James, Dwyane
Wade and Chris Bosh. Many owners saw that as detrimental to the competitiveness of the NBA and wanted to put measures in place that would not let something of the sort happen again.
Tags: