Tag: Fisher

NBA back in business

NEW YORK — Six weary figures rose from their chairs early Saturday, their expressions telegraphing the conclusion to the NBA’s five-month labor crisis: Basketball is back in business, with a new labor deal that heavily favors the owners, despite some last-minute concessions.

The league wanted an overhaul of its $4 billion-a-year enterprise, and it got it, with a nearly $300 million annual reduction in player salaries and a matrix of new restrictions on contracts and team payrolls. The changes mean a $3 billion gain for the owners over the life of the 10-year deal.

Before finally agreeing to those sacrifices, the players’ negotiators won a handful of concessions that will allow the richest teams to keep spending on players, ensuring a more competitive free-agent market.

A truncated 66-game schedule will begin on Christmas Day with three nationally televised games. For that, officials on both sides were grateful as they announced a resolution at 2:40 a.m. CDT, on the 149th day of the lockout, after a final 15-hour bargaining session at law offices in Manhattan.

“We look forward to opening on Christmas Day,” , the NBA’s deputy commissioner, said during the brief news conference. “We’re excited to bring NBA basketball back. That’s most important.”

A little more than two weeks ago, the talks appeared dead. A federal mediator had intervened twice, failing both times to bridge the divide. Commissioner had tried threats and ultimatums before declaring negotiations over on Nov. 10.

Four days later, the players dissolved their union and filed a federal antitrust lawsuit. Stern promptly predicted a “nuclear winter” for the league, amid widespread predictions that the 2011-12 season would be canceled.

The deal was finally forged by the possibility of a cancellation, the feared loss of billions of dollars to the league and its players, and, perhaps, by the uncertainty created by the looming legal battle.

The new agreement, according to a memo Hunter sent to union members, calls for players to receive a 51.2 percent split of basketball-related revenues with the owners for this season. The players had been earning 57 percent.

The loss of 16 regular-season games and the preseason cost the owners and players about $400 million each. The parties had already resolved the biggest issues, including the $300 million salary reduction, weeks ago, but were hung up on fairly minor details — mostly rules restricting the top-spending teams from adding players.

With a 66-game schedule in reach, everyone finally resolved that those items were not worth sacrificing a season and alienating fans and sponsors. The normal NBA regular season is 82 games.

“For myself, it’s great to be a part of this particular moment, in terms of giving our fans what it is that they so badly wanted and want to see,” said , president of the players’ union.

Fisher did not smile as he said it, appearing more relieved than happy.

Billy Hunter, the longtime head of the players union, sat stoically next to him. No one on the players’ side praised the deal.

League officials achieved their two broadest goals — reduced costs and a system that evens the playing field between the richest and poorest teams. The reduction in player salaries should offset the NBA’s reported $300 million in annual losses, and provide total savings of about $3 billion over the 10-year agreement.

Each side has an option to terminate the deal after six years. In addition to the significant pay cut for players, the deal includes shorter contracts, smaller raises and a more punitive tax system to rein in the top-spending teams.

“I think it will largely prevent the high-spending teams from competing in the free-agency market in a way that they have been able to in the past,” Silver said. “We feel ultimately it will give fans in every community hope that their team can compete for championships.”

Training camps will open Dec. 9. Unsigned players will be permitted to sign new contracts that day, setting up a chaotic two-week mad dash toward the 2011-12 season.

The three Christmas games are likely to be the ones that were already on the schedule: The Knicks will host the to open the day, followed by an rematch, with the visiting the defending champion Dallas Mavericks. The will visit the in the finale.

The rest of the schedule will be reconstructed and released in the coming days. The season will begin eight weeks later than originally scheduled, requiring some major contortions and stress for everyone involved.

The regular season will be extended into late April, pushing back the playoffs and the Finals by a week. To fit 66 games, teams will have to play about two more games per month.

Teams will sometimes have to play on three consecutive nights — something that has not been done since the lockout-shortened 1999 season. That season, the shortest in the modern era, is often regarded with an asterisk and was marked by sloppy play and out-of-shape players.

The 2011-12 season may need only a quarter-asterisk. Every team will play 48 in-conference games, just four fewer than normal. But teams will play only 18 out-of-conference games, meaning not every team will visit every city.

The entire collective bargaining agreement must be formally written and ratified, but both Stern and Hunter expressed confidence that the deal would be approved.

Tying up loose ends

The announcement in the wee hours of Saturday morning of a handshake agreement between the NBA’s owners and players on a deal to end the lockout doesn’t guarantee there will be a 66-game 2011-12 season that will begin on Christmas Day.

As deputy commissioner Adam Silver reminded: “We’re on an incredibly tight schedule, as you might imagine, between now and opening on Christmas.”

Express-News NBA beat writer Mike Monroe presents a tentative timeline that can turn the tentative agreement into the reality of a 66-game season:

Dismiss lawsuit: On Monday, players listed as plaintiffs in the anti-trust lawsuits filed in the U.S. District Court for the 8th District in Minneapolis will ask the judge assigned to that case to dismiss it, removing it from the process altogether.

Reclaim interest: Also Monday, leadership of the trade association that previously was known as the National Basketball Players Association will reclaim interest in representing the players, effectively reversing the action taken two weeks ago when the union disclaimed interest.

Recertify union: After reclaiming interest, union leadership will seek a vote of all the players to approve reorganization of the union.

Address B-list: Also Monday, negotiators for both sides will meet to work on numerous “B-list” details left hanging, including the draft, D-League and drug testing.

Vote on it: Once agreement is reached on all B-list issues — hopefully in nine or 10 days — a formal document will be submitted to both sides for an up-or-down vote as a new collective bargaining agreement. The full membership of the union and all 30 teams, through the Board of Governors, must approve the deal, by a simple majority.

Begin camps: If the CBA is approved, training camps and a short free-agent signing period would begin Dec. 9.

Start season: The regular season would begin Christmas Day with a tripleheader, starting with Celtics-Knicks at the renovated Madison Square Garden. Then a rematch of the Finals with the Heat visiting the Mavericks, followed by Bulls-Lakers at Staples Center

NBA cancels more games after negotiations break down

By BRIAN MAHONEY
Associated Press

NEW YORK — As NBA players and owners wait to see who will blink first, fans are stuck staring at a blank calendar.

NBA Commissioner David Stern canceled the rest of the November games Friday, saying there will not be a full NBA season “under any circumstances.”

The move came about after labor negotiations broke down again when both sides refused to budge on how to split the league’s revenues, the same issue that derailed talks last week.

Now, a full month of NBA games have been canceled, and Stern said there’s no way of getting them back.

“We held out that joint hope together, but in light of the breakdown of talks, there will not be a full NBA season under any circumstances,” he said.

“It’s not practical, possible or prudent to have a full season now,” added Stern, who previously canceled the first two weeks of the season.

And he repeated his warnings that the proposals might now get even harsher as the league tries to make up the hundreds of millions of dollars that will be lost as the lockout drags on.

“We’re going to have to recalculate how bad the damage is,” Stern said. “The next offer will reflect the extraordinary losses that are piling up now.”

Just a day earlier, Stern had said he would consider it a failure if the sides didn’t reach a deal in the next few days and vowed they would take “one heck of a shot” to get it done.

Instead, negotiations broke off again over the division of basketball-related income, just as they did last Thursday. Union executive director Billy Hunter said the league again insisted it had to be split 50-50, while Stern said Hunter just walked out and left rather than discuss going below 52 percent.

Owners are insistent on a 50-50 split, while players last formally proposed they get 52.5 percent, leaving them about $100 million apart annually. Players were guaranteed 57 percent in the previous collective bargaining agreement.

“Derek (Fisher) and I made it clear that we could not take the 50-50 deal to our membership. Not with all the concessions that we granted,” Hunter said. “We said we got to have some dollars.”

Instead, they’ll now be out roughly $350 million, the losses Hunter previously projected for each month the players were locked out. He believed a full season could be played if a deal were made this weekend, but Stern emphatically ruled out any hope of that now.

“These are not punitive announcements; these are calendar generated announcements,” Stern said.

No further talks have been scheduled.

There was a sense of optimism entering the day after progress was made on salary cap issues during about 24 hours of talks over the previous two days. Then the sides brought the revenue split back into the discussion Friday and promptly got stuck on both issues.

Stern said the NBA owners were “willing” to go to 50 percent. But he said Hunter was unwilling to “go a penny below 52,” that he had been getting many calls from agents and then closed up his book and walked out of the room.

Hunter said the league initially moved its target down to 47 percent during Friday’s six-hour session, then returned to its previous proposal of 50 percent of revenues.

“We made a lot of concessions, but unfortunately at this time it’s not enough, and we’re not prepared or unable at this time to move any further,” Hunter said.

Union president Fisher said it was difficult to say why talks broke down, or when they would start up again.

“We’re here, we’ve always been here, but today just wasn’t the day to try and finish this out,” he said.

There was some good news.

Deputy Commissioner Adam Silver said there was essentially a “tentative agreement” on most system issues, with Stern rattling off some of them: Owners agreed to keep the midlevel exception starting at $5 million a year; and contract lengths would be five years for players staying with their teams and four when leaving for another.

“And then we hit a wall,” Stern said.

The small groups that were meeting the previous two days grew a bit Friday. Union vice presidents Chris Paul — wearing a Yankees cap for his trip to New York — and Theo Ratliff joined the talks, and economist Kevin Murphy returned after he was unavailable Thursday. Mavericks owner Mark Cuban stayed for the session after taking part Thursday.

Fisher said there were still too many restrictions in the owners’ proposal. Players want to keep a system similar to the old one, and fear owners’ ideas would limit player movement and the choices available to them in free agency.

And though they might be inclined to give up one if they received more concessions on the other, players make it sound as if they are the ones doing all the giving back.

The old cap system allowed teams to exceed it through the use of a number of exceptions, many of which the league wants to tweak or even eliminate. Hunter has called a hard cap a “blood issue” to players, and though the league has backed off its initial proposal calling for one, players think the changes owners want would work like one.

“We’ve told them that we don’t want a hard cap. We don’t want a hard cap any kind of way, either an obvious hard cap or a hard cap that may not be as obvious to most people but we know it works like a hard cap,” Hunter said. “And so you get there, and then all of a sudden they say, ‘Well, we also have to have our number.’ And you say, ‘Well wait a minute, you’re not negotiating in good faith.’”

But if players think what’s being proposed is a hard cap, here’s another warning: Silver won’t rule out the league seeking one again.

“Our response is then let’s have a hard cap, which is what we wanted,” he said.

“We don’t think it’s a hard cap. … We’ve all been wasting our time if they believe this is a hard cap. We’ve been spending literally hundreds of hours negotiating the specifics of a system, where they’re now saying is the equivalent of a hard cap. We’ve been clear from the beginning from a league standpoint we would prefer a hard cap.”

When players offered to reduce their guarantee from 57 percent to 53 percent, Hunter said that would have transferred about $1.1 billion to owners over six years. Now, at 52.5, he said that would grow to more than $1.5 billion.

But even a 50-50 split would be too high for some hardline owners, because it would reduce only $280 million of the $300 million they said they lost last season. Owners initially proposed a BRI split that players said would have had them around 40 percent.

Though they will miss a paycheck on Nov. 15, Hunter said each player would have received a minimum of $100,000 from the escrow money that was returned to them to make up the difference after salaries fell short of the guaranteed 57 percent of revenues last season.

The real losses, though, could be felt by arena staff and other people who work in fields connected to the game. Stern apologized to them in making the announcement.

But Jeff Lee, a 37-year-old cafe owner and Warriors season-ticketholder in the East Bay, said he isn’t discouraged about Friday’s setback.

“I’m pretty certain that the season’s going to start sooner or later,” Lee said. “I know when the season starts it’s going to be well worth the wait.”
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AP Sports Writer Janie McCauley in Oakland, Calif. contributed to this report.

Follow Brian Mahoney on Twitter: twitter.com/Briancmahoney