A veteran's advice

It seems that sooner rather than later the NBA will reach a deal with its players and lift their four-month lockout.

Watching from a distance Bill Guerin, a veteran of the NHL lockout and former NHLPA hardliner can only say it should be sooner: A season -- even a single payday -- is a terrible thing to waste.

Presuming an NBA deal gets done, the NHL will remain the only professional sports league to sit out an entire season.

Looking back Guerin, 41, is adamant that they should remain the only one.

When it comes to battles between millionaire players and their billionaire owners the players are in a fight they can't win.

"You have to fight for every percentage point, but you also have to know when to cut your losses," the 18-year NHL veteran told me over the phone. "My point is that it's not worth burning a year fighting over two per cent. Go ahead; burn the year on two per cent. That's great, but you're never going to make up that two per cent. You would be better off taking two-per cent less and making your money."

Are NBA players listening? Maybe. There are a number of issues at work in their dispute with ownership, but primarily it's about how much of the NBA's roughly $4-billion in basketball-related revenue will be shared and what means will be used to share it.

The players were getting 57 per cent of BRI (basketball related income) in their old deal and owners want them to lower their cut to 50 per cent. The players for the longest time have made 53 per cent their line in the sand until recently walking off in a huff when owners rejected their offer of 52.5 per cent (each percentage point is about $40-million annually).

Until the two sides began talking again on Wednesday with encouraging noises being made by each side, it seemed the entire season was hanging on that relatively small gap.

The thought of it makes Guerin shudder as he relives the bitter NHL lockout that sent the 2004-05 season up in smoke. He was front-and-centre as a union vice president and loyal lieutenant to then NHLPA executive director Bob Goodenow.

He was as dug in as anyone else, but now looks back with regret and realization.

"There's a partnership in the sense that we share the revenue; we're trying to grow the game, that kind of thing," Guerin says over the phone from Long Island. "But it's their league. I'm retired. It's not my league, but they're still there. They own the teams. They control what's going on, that's the bottom line."

His message to NBA players and to NHL players who may well be in a similar fight when their current deal expires after this season?

Get a deal done. Like it or not you're in a minority partnership. Focus on growing the business rather than dictating the terms, and if that means giving up more than you would like in a deal, so be it.

"If you get too stubborn and you don't want to be open minded about it, you're only hurting yourself," he says. "Better to take a little bit of a haircut than get your whole head shaved."

It's a reversal won of experience. The NHLPA splintered under the weight of a full year out of work and the looming prospect of a second season lost. At the time Guerin admits he looked down at players who split from the hard-line the union had taken against the implementation of a salary cap. No longer.

He lost a full year's salary at $6.7-million and after a season off the ice and in the boardroom he never got completely back into top playing shape the following year. His contract was bought out and that cost him another $2.3-million.

Hockey players are bred to think team first and fight for every inch of ice; get stitched up and keep playing. Pick up those teeth, give them to the trainer, and keep playing.

That mentality helped the NHLPA stay unified for longer and under greater duress than any other sports union has in recent times, but it may ultimately have cost them, as much as it pains Guerin to admit it now.

"When you're right in the middle of it, it's emotional, it's hard," he said. "Hockey players are the ultimate team players and we'll buy in and go to war, but you know what? Individual guys have to do what's right for their families and do what's right for them. To me it's playing."

The NHL's fight was over the change from a free market for player salaries to a hard salary cap in one fell swoop. In the end, they seemed to have lost everything as the owners got their hard cap and got a 24 per cent wage roll back right off the top.

But a funny thing happened: League revenues have grown and all of a sudden a journeyman like James Wisneiwski can command a $33-million over six years from the small market Columbus Blue Jackets. Budding superstars like Drew Doughty can sign a $56-million contract at age 21.

"They say think of the next generation," says Geurin. "The next generation seems to be doing okay."

Geurin is as well. He's a player development coach with the Pittsburgh Penguins. He's got time at home with his four young kids. He looked after the money he earned when he played.

He just wishes he had his lost year back. He doesn't know any NBA players personally, but he knows what they're going through and doesn't want another athlete to go through what he and his peers did.

"It's a year without the game," he says. "You think about stuff like that when you get older."

Michael Grange will provide insight and analysis on all the top stories in sports.