Columnist Dean Juipe: NBA owners fail to utilize self-restraint

THEY HAVE money, they like the feel of power and superiority, and they're only partially in favor of a free-enterprise system.

The presidents of the emerging republics that broke out of the old Soviet Union?

No, the owners in the National Basketball Association.

The NBA is in the midst of a poorly conceived lockout, orchestrated by the team owners as a protest of sorts against their players' astronomical wages. If they need a script for the Dumb and Dumber sequel, this is it.

The owners are locking the players out and threatening to delay or cancel the 1998-99 season not because the players have violated the collective bargaining agreement but because the owners themselves are unable to keep a grip on their purse strings.

Cartoonists should capitalize on this imagery: The distraught owners as one, a bag of money sitting on a knee and their own hand-held knife poised to slit their throat, pleading for compassion. "Save us from ourselves," the caption might read.

The NBA's annual revenue is a cozy $2 billion per year and that's real money, not Gupta bucks.

Despite that massive wealth, the league says 13 teams lost money last season. The players' union, however, puts the number of teams losing money in 1997-98 at four and it adds this important asterisk: Three of those four -- Atlanta, Golden State and the Los Angeles Clippers -- have new arenas under construction and once those buildings are in place those franchises should move into the black. (Both sides agree the Indiana Pacers are losing money.)

The average NBA salary is $2.3 million, up 50 percent in five years.

It's $2.3 million for one reason alone: The owners have the money and are willing to pay it. Now, in the midst of this prosperity, they want change. They want a hard salary cap in which, among other things, no player's salary could exceed 30 percent of the team's total payroll.

They want to limit what a Michael Jordan might be worth while still being able to throw $10 million at a blowhard like Derrick Coleman.

They can't police themselves, so they want the players' union to agree to do it for them. They're doctoring their books and asking for help as if the league will eventually go out of business without it.

They're misleading the public if not outright distorting the facts. If the owners truly wanted to halt a runaway salary structure, they could -- without colluding -- agree to be more judicious in their pursuit of free agents. It's as if it hasn't dawned on the owners that if none of them will pay the Colemans $10 million, those players might still be willing to play for half that.

Lacking that restraint, the owners have shifted the onus to the players. Their message: Either modify the collective bargaining agreement to limit salaries, or risk not having a 1998-99 season.

While it isn't easy sympathizing with the coddled and moody players, this is one instance where they should call the owners' bluff. Whatever hardships the players endure over the short term, the trade-off is the realization that it's the owners who have more to lose in the long run and that they're not about to let the league disband.

Let them get their own house in order.

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