Lynn Swann Quotes

My decision leaving the Nuggets was based on the organization not saying they had the cap room to sign me.

And historically the owners have used loyalty to a team or a city to hold players as opposed to always paying their worth.

We need a system where all of our teams have the opportunity to compete and to make a few dollars. That's not a bad desire for collective bargaining for a sports league, and it's great for our fans.

I think people have to realize that - and basketball fans do, Lakers fans do - that we have to operate under the rules of the collective bargaining agreement, which means you can't just go and grab every player that you want.

You don't want to get to the point where you play out your contract and you get to those complicated situations where they can put the franchise tag on you and things like that.

I don't think it's right to think ahead to free agency.

Just because you go to free agency doesn't mean you don't want to be somewhere. It's just a part of the business.

I can't speak on anybody else's free agencies, how that's going, but for myself, it helps to kind of be patient and let it happen.

When I look at our roster, I'm sure all of you have printed that I'm coming up on 35, and given my situation and my salary structure and all that, yeah, I have to wonder if this team is going to make moves and they haven't.

My job, when it comes to free agency, trades, is not to pick players, but support the personnel department and the coaching staff. We have to have the financial resources to make things happen and that's my job.

Well, everybody is trying to make this a money thing. If you send me to another team, let's see what I ask for. I won't ask for nothing. I'll play under the same terms. So it is not Gary wants more money. Gary has money. What else do I need?

The people who run the game, they are the ones who want to change it and make people believe that it's different somehow. It's not different, the only difference is that some ballplayers today have a chance for a four- or five-year contract and they can make big money.

Free agency screws everybody's allegiances up. Whether it be football, baseball, hockey, basketball, whatever it may be. It's really hard.

Baseball and the players association have rules. If you stay within the rules - which say that you can play while you're appealing - I don't see what anyone would be in arms about.

Once you've been around this business long enough, anything is a possibility. It's a business first and foremost. Guys play it because they love it, but it is a business, and if you don't understand that it's a business, you're lying to yourself.

The two major things that changed the makeup of all professional sports are money generated by television and courts that players went to in order to win their freedom as free agents.

The NBA believes if you play for a team and get paid by a team, you're the property of that team for 24 hours a day.

The owners said that they wanted the salary cap and refused to promise that they would abide by the rules of the just-expired contract after the season ended. Believing we had no choice, the players went on strike in August of 1994.

And then came the nineties, when management, suddenly frightened that they had ceded control to the players, sought to restore baseball's profitability by 'running the game like a business.'

I went out as a free agent in Boston and had a great year and I priced myself out of there market, at the time.

The ability of players to jump teams when their contracts are up has hurt fan loyalty.

A lot of players know I've been around 13 years and this is my second lockout. I got a lot of respect. I know what's going on both for the league and the union.

I've seen where teams pay to get a player, like when Los Angeles paid to get Wayne Gretzky.

Pro basketball is a very mercenary endeavor.

To be candid with you, free agency hurts all sports. It's great for athletes making an enormous amount of money. But to say it helps the sports, I don't believe that.