NBA players, owners meet for labor talks
Carmelo Anthony was among the players that met with owners at Omni Berkshire in midtown Manhattan. Credit: Patrick E. McCarthy
The prospects of an NBA lockout likely will be known before any players are selected in next Thursday's draft. Both sides emerged from Friday's collective-bargaining session at the Omni Berkshire Hotel in midtown Manhattan pointing to the next scheduled meeting on Tuesday as a critical deadline.
"I really think that the time to have an optimistic or pessimistic view is at the end of the day on Tuesday," commissioner David Stern said. "I think that Tuesday is a very important day in these negotiations. It's just important because of the substance of our conversation today and because time is running out and because both parties still remain, at least to me, intent on doing the best they can to make a deal before June 30." That's when the current CBA expires.
Seven days before that, the NBA will host its draft at the Prudential Center in Newark, but deputy commissioner Adam Silver informed the union that the NBA Summer League, held annually in Las Vegas in mid-July, has been canceled.
"We made clear to the union it was purely a function of the calendar and drop-dead dates with hotels and the arena,'' Silver told reporters after the meeting. "No intent to send signals of any kind to the players, but it was an unfortunate consequence that, at this late date, we still do not have a deal beginning July 1.''
According to a person with knowledge of the situation, he NBA told a group of freelance employees that they would not be retained after June 30. But so far, there are no plans to furlough any full-time staff in the league office.
The NBA endured a lockout in 1998 that carried into the 1998-99 season and resulted in a 50-game season. But since that agreement was signed, the NBA and the union have enjoyed relatively peaceful cooperation.
The greatest issue at hand is, of course, financially based. Stern wants the league to implement a system that more closely resembles the NFL, with a hard cap and fewer guarantees on contracts. The league also wants to dramatically reduce the percentage of league revenue the players get, which for the 2010-11 season was $2.1 billion. The NBA reportedly wants the players' share to be more in the range of $750 million to $800 million.
The union believes the current system works fine the way it is but recently conceded to the idea of taking less of the revenue pie, which under the current CBA guarantees the players 57 percent of basketball-related income. The league, in turn, has softened its stance on abolishing guaranteed contracts. But neither has come up with a deal that would be amenable to the other.
"I think you would say that both sides feel their proposals have narrowed the gap," Stern said. Said union president Derek Fisher: "Both sides tried their best to address the other side's concerns. But still nowhere near, I'd say, getting a deal done."
The good news: They're talking, and the rhetoric has been mostly replaced by sincerity. Fisher noted a "very clear sense of urgency" in the meeting.
Several players were in attendance, along with team owners, in the first large-group setting the sides have had since a session in Dallas two weeks ago at the NBA Finals.
"Are we on the same page? No," Knicks forward Carmelo Anthony said. "But there's a lot of good dialogue going back and forth right now."