Wednesday, November 2, 2011

AJ Gilpin Rough Draft


AJ Gilpin
Bryan Lutz
English 151
October 23, 2011
Lockout or Payout?

            Lockouts seem to be a large portion of recent news, whether it is the NFL, NBA or NHL.  The 2004-2005 NHL season was completely cancelled due to a lockout. The NFL had a lockout for the 2012 season but the owners and players resolved the issue and are having a successful season. This does not seem to be the case for the Nation Basketball Association though. They are currently in a lockout that has already cancelled the first two weeks of this season. So what is a “lockout” exactly? It is basically a dispute between owners and players over aspects of the NBA. One of the main focuses of their disputes is money. The NBA is currently fighting over money. The already extremely rich NBA owners are attempting to take even more money from the players. As it looks the lockout will continue till the players are willing to give up more money to the owners.  While more and more of the season gets cancelled both the players and the owners will continually lose money.  The players gain no money at all while the lockout continues. The owners who are still being greedy and asking for more money are still getting paid from television providers like TBS, Fox and TNT. I find it strange that while the owners are asking for more money they are still receiving hefty paychecks. This NBA lockout is a standoff between millionaires and billionaires.
            With the possibility of the entire season being cancelled many NBA stars are doing other jobs or playing overseas just to earn a paycheck. “Nets All-Star Deron Williams has a deal with Turkish club Besiktas -  which is also courting Kobe Bryant - and most top players said they would consider playing overseas,”
            Many star players a being forced to play overseas so that they can make a paycheck. With no end in sight more and more players will be playing overseas or getting regular jobs like us to stay afloat. The lockout is hardest on rookie players that just got drafted. They have no received a paycheck yet so there is no nest egg in which they can live off of during the lockout. Many rookie players like Kyrie Irving have decided to go back to college. Irving will be a sophomore at Duke and will still be able to increase his skills while playing in the NCAA.  Like I said before the lockout is just billionaires versus millionaires. At the end of the day the owners are going to get want they want because they have more power. They have more money and can risk losing an entire season because they are still making money off of television contracts. The players that cannot play overseas will soon fold into the owners. The owners will get what they want and will soon be even richer while the players’ salaries are harshly cut. The owners are trying to make a 50-50 split in the money going to players and owners. There are 30 teams so about 30 owners and around 450 players. It is outrageous that the owners are asking for a split of the money when there are 15 times the number of players than there are owners. The owners are going to continue to do a standoff and not agree to a deal until it is exactly what they want. The players will slowly begin to break down and offer more and more money to the owners until they agree. Hopefully this point happens before the entire season is cancelled. A cancellation is a huge threat this year and hopefully they will reach an agreement before that has to happen. 

2 comments:

  1. 1.) Does the essay make a clear argument? Yes___ No____ If so, what is the argument as you interpret it? If not, what is your best guess?
    Yes he is siding with the players because they aren't getting paid while the "selfish" owners are.

    2.) Find on sentence that you think best describes the thesis of the blog essay.
    The already extremely rich NBA owners are attempting to take even more money from the players.


    3.) Based upon questions one and two, what are the supporting points that your partner offers to support their argument?
    The owners who are still being greedy and asking for more money are still getting paid from television providers like TBS, Fox and TNT. I find it strange that while the owners are asking for more money they are still receiving hefty paychecks.

    4.) Does the article provide plenty of level-1 abstractions (examples) to support their argument? If so, please list at your favorites.
    Not many yet there are a couple videos but he isn't finished quite yet.

    5.) Does the article provide a detailed history of the problem so that the reader clearly understands who was involved, what happened, where it happened, when and why?
    Yes, he explains some background and talks about before and during and also talks about other lockouts as well so the reader can connect with it.

    6.) Is the significance of all videos and images clearly explained in the essay? If not, make note of some examples.
    Not yet but he isn't finished yet.

    7.) Are their any claims in the essay that you are skeptical of? If so, why?
    No

    8.) Are there points in the essay that you found to be particularly persuasive? If so, why?
    Yes because my argument is basically the opposite and he kind of made me re think my opinion.

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  2. 1) Yes my partner did a good job recognizing what message I was trying to convey with my thesis. For the amount of the article that I have completed I do not think there is anything that they have overlooked. I can revise my arguments and just proof read and I am not quite finished with my rough draft so I will have more messages that people will catch onto once I am completely finished with my article.
    2) Yes I found my partners feedback very helpful. My partner is writing on the same topic as I am and we have two completely different opinions. My partner said that my paper may have made her reconsider her opinion on the topic. I found this helpful because I have been doubting my paper and made continuous changes and was still not sure how effective my argument was, her feedback showed me that I am being effective because I completely changed her opinion on the topic at hand.
    3) The first thing I am going to revise is the overall paper. I have not spent much time on my paper and I am going to make it longer and make a lot of changes to make the paper flow better and to add more abstractions and more pictures videos and sources.
    4) My argument as I would define it is very similar to what my partner noticed and that is to give information on why the NBA owners are out of line by asking to cut the NBA player’s salaries and by implementing a hard salary cap, they are doing this because the owners are not making as much money as they did in the past and are deciding to keep as much profit as they can while the players take the payment fall.

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