Monday deadline daunting with Yom Kippur looming

NBA commissioner David Stern’s deadline of a Monday settlement of the lockout could test the bargaining powers of both sides.

With no talks set for Thursday and the Yom Kippur holiday expected to be observed by negotiators on both sides on Friday and Saturday, there will be little chance to talk over the next several days.

ESPN.com’s Chris Broussard said those factors willto save the Nov. 1 start of the deadline.

Stern announced earlier this week he will cancel the first two weeks of the regular season if there is no agreement in place by Monday.

It’s going to be extremely challenging to hit that mark with the little time that both sides will have for negotiating.

Retirement isn’t end for Yao

By Jonathan Feigen
jonathan.feigen@chron.com

HOUSTON — With the door to the NBA that swung open nine years ago now closed on him, Yao Ming on Wednesday chose “a new life.”

Yao announced his retirement in a ceremony and news conference in Shanghai, citing the repeated injuries to his left foot and ankle.

“At the end of the last year, my left foot had a third fracture,” Yao said. “Today, I need to make a personal decision. I will stop my basketball career, and I will formally retire. Today, thinking back and thinking of the future, I have been very grateful. First of all, I need to be grateful to basketball. It has brought happiness to many people, including myself.

“Life is my guide. Just follow it, and it will open doors. Out of each door, there will be (a) beautiful world outside. Since I am retired, one door is closed. But a new life is waiting for me. I have left the basketball (court), but I will not leave basketball.”

He also will not leave Houston and sent a message to his “second hometown.”

“I’d like to thank you for giving me a great nine years in my career,” Yao said. “Nine years ago, I came to Houston as a young, tall, skinny player. An entire city and team changed me to a grown man, not only as a basketball player. I gained my first daughter over there. I feel I’m a Houstonian, and I will always be with you.”

While Yao moved on, the NBA could not quite let go.

NBA commissioner David Stern said he would soon offer Yao a place in the NBA, likely working with the league’s initiatives in China that have taken off since the Rockets made Yao the first pick of the 2002 NBA Draft.

“It’s sad,” Rockets owner Leslie Alexander said. “He had such great potential. He fulfilled it, really, but we would have been a great team with him. It’s sad for him because I know he wants to play very badly. It’s sad for the Rockets.”

The day after Yao was drafted, Alexander had said that Yao would become the greatest sports star in the world. That seemed to be hyperbole at the time, driven by the excitement of landing a 7-foot-6 tower of potential. But Alexander’s expectation turned out to be prophetic.

“At his peak, he was that,” Alexander said. “If he had been healthy, and we would have won championships, he would have been even bigger. But he had the most name recognition in the world. He was a sports icon.”

Stern also flashed back to Yao’s first giant steps to the NBA and the night it all started. He knew then that Yao’s impact would stretch far beyond the court, even if he could not have predicted then the growth of the game in China that Yao would inspire.

“I remember the exhilaration of calling his name as the first pick … and contemplating that he would be a bridge between Chinese fans and American fans,” Stern said. “That all happened with a wonderful mixture of talent, dedication, humanitarian aspirations and a sense of humor.

“What a wonderful combination.”

Alexander said he would like Yao to continue to work with the Rockets but was not sure that would be Yao’s preference.

“Yao’s got so much going for him worldwide, I don’t think he’s the kind of person who would work with one team,” Alexander said. “He’s bigger than that.”

Fans fear they’ll be the losers

A quick glance around A.J. Hausman’s office tells you everything you need to know about his NBA allegiance.

At least a dozen Spurs team balls, dating to the 1980s, line the shelves. Upward of 30 autographed Spurs jerseys festoon the walls.

When it comes to the latest NBA work stoppage, Hausman — a Spurs season-ticket holder since George Gervin was wowing audiences at HemisFair Arena — has but one rooting interest.

“I just hope they get it fixed before they start missing games,” said Hausman, 63, who runs a wholesale meat distribution company south of downtown. “The people who suffer the most in something like this are always the fans.”

The first full day of the NBA lockout came and went Friday, a day after league owners and the players’ union agreed they couldn’t agree on a new collective bargaining agreement.

At first blush, Spurs fans in San Antonio probably didn’t notice the difference.

At lunchtime Friday, the fan shop at the ATT Center had for sale the usual collection of jerseys, T-shirts and other paraphernalia bearing names and likenesses of Spurs players. Business was slow, but typically so for a random weekday in July.

The lockout was most immediately felt in the Spurs’ front office, where July 1 normally would have signaled the opening of free agency. Instead, phones remained quiet across the league, with team personnel barred — by threat of a $1 million fine — from contact with players, agents or intermediaries until the labor issue is settled.

Perhaps the most noticeable sign of the lockout’s arrival in San Antonio could be found on the Spurs’ official website, where images of all current players had been removed by order of the NBA.

Late Friday afternoon, the Spurs.com home page featured a link to NBA.com’s coverage of the labor struggle, a story on player-development coach Chad Forcier and video features about the Silver Dancers and the team’s mascot, The Coyote.

Though the earliest effects of the lockout have been easy to miss, fans who stuck with the team through the league’s last labor stoppage in 1998-99 realize more meaningful consequences are on the horizon.

Carol Muir, a real-estate agent with Kuper-Sotheby’s, has owned Spurs season tickets since 1974-75, when the club played in the ABA. If she learned anything from the labor war of 13 years ago, it’s that things are likely to get worse before they get better.

It took 204 days to resolve the last lockout, and not before 32 of 82 games were erased from the NBA schedule.

“The longer it goes, the worse it will be,” Muir said.

Owners are seeking to revamp a player salary-structure they say is unsustainable, citing league accounting that claims 22 of 30 teams posted losses last season totaling in excess of $300 million.

Players have been willing to concede some salary relief but would prefer owners contribute to their own bailout through revenue sharing, rather than relying solely on payroll cuts.

The two sides plan to return to the bargaining table in a few weeks. If an agreement can’t be reached by October, the start of the regular season could be postponed. If the dispute persists into January, the entire season might be scuttled.

Fans, some of whom plunk down thousands of dollars per year on season tickets, don’t seem to care about the specifics of the tug-of-war. They just want basketball.

“I feel more sorry for the people who work the games, the ushers and the concessionaires, than I do the players,” said Muir, who says she will keep her season tickets even if games are missed. “And I feel sorry for all the fans.”

After the 1998-99 lockout, it took several years for some fans to fully embrace the sport again. At a news conference Thursday in New York, league commissioner David Stern said he understood why fans might not take kindly to another stoppage.

“I think our fans will tend to have a negative view of, ‘Why can’t you guys work this thing out?’” Stern said.

Spurs forward Matt Bonner, a vice president of the players’ union, echoed sympathy for the league’s fans.

“As players, we want to play,” Bonner said. “But at the same time, we need a fair deal.”

For fans such as Hausman, that day can’t come soon enough. Like Muir, Hausman says he has no plans to cancel the season tickets he first purchased in 1984.

He just hopes he has a chance to use them again sometime soon.

“I’ll still support the Spurs,” he said. “I just hope they figure this out. It’s sad that it had to come to this.”

Staff Writer Mike Monroe contributed to this report.