NBA, players hold another marathon meeting

By BRIAN MAHONEY
AP Basketball Writer

NEW YORK — NBA owners and players were engaged in another marathon session Friday, meeting for more than 13 hours in talks aimed at ending the 148-day lockout in time to save the league’s Christmas Day schedule.

That deadline has created a sense of urgency because the Dec. 25 schedule is traditionally a showcase for the league. This season’s three-game slate was to include Miami at Dallas in an NBA finals rematch, plus MVP Derrick Rose leading Chicago into Los Angeles to face Kobe Bryant and the Lakers.

After a secret meeting earlier this week, the sides returned to the table to try to hash out a deal. Commissioner David Stern has said the league needs about 30 days from an agreement to when games could be played.

Participating in the talks for the league were Stern, deputy commissioner Adam Silver, Spurs owner Peter Holt, the chairman of the labor relations committee, and attorneys Rick Buchanan and Dan Rube. The players were represented by executive director Billy Hunter, president Derek Fisher, vice president Maurice Evans, attorney Ron Klempner and economist Kevin Murphy.

The discussions between representatives of the owners and players are now centered on settling their lawsuits: The players filed an antitrust lawsuit against the league in Minnesota, and the league filed a pre-emptive suit in New York, seeking to prove the lockout was legal.

Because the union disbanded, it cannot negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement, but the settlement talks could lead to that. The CBA can only be completed once the union has reformed.

There are still a handful of issues relating to spending rules for teams that must be worked out — issues that have been an obstacle to a new deal since the lockout began July 1. Players fear that owners’ desires to curb spending by the big-market teams would limit their options as free agents.

Talks last broke down Nov. 14 when players rejected the owners’ proposal that included opening a 72-game schedule on Dec. 15, instead announcing instead they were disbanding the union, giving them a chance to win several billion dollars in triple damages in an antitrust lawsuit.

On Monday, a group of named plaintiffs including Carmelo Anthony, Steve Nash and Kevin Durant filed an amended federal lawsuit against the league in Minnesota, hoping the courts there will be as favorable to them as they have been to NFL players in the past.

The NFL players enjoyed several victories over the owners in federal court in Minnesota, most recently when U.S. District Judge Susan Richard Nelson issued a temporary injunction this summer that lifted the NFL’s owner-imposed lockout. That decision was stayed and eventually overturned on appeal by the 8th Circuit in St. Louis.

The legal system could take months to resolve, so both sides repeatedly have said the only way to reach a deal that would save the season is through bargaining. The 1998-99 lockout reduced that season to 50 games. It was settled shortly after the new year and play started in February.

This season games have been canceled through Dec. 15, but in reality another week probably already has been lost, given the time needed to write and approve a new collective bargaining agreement, have a free agency period, hold training camps and play exhibition games.

Players receive last NBA proposal

By Mike Monroe
mikemonroe@express-news.net

NEW YORK – After another 10-and-a-half hours of talks on the 133rd day of the NBA lockout, a revised proposal from the league to its players’ union brought a halt to negotiations so the players have time to consider a proposal that appears to be the last, best hope for an agreement that would save a relatively full NBA season.

Commissioner David Stern said if the union agrees to the proposal offered them Thursday a 72-game season would begin on Dec. 15.

Should the union reject the proposal, Stern said the “reset” proposal that has been hanging over the negotiations all week – an offer that will be much worse than that which the league offered Thursday – will become the league’s position.

That offer, Stern said, will be at a 47 percent share of basketball related income for the players and will include a much harder salary cap.

The executive board of the National Basketball Players Association has summoned the player representatives from all 30 teams to return to New York, hopefully by Monday, for a meeting to decide what to do about the proposal that Stern said has gone as far as the league can go in meeting the players’ demands.

“There comes a time when you have to be through negotiating,” Stern said, “and we are.”

Union president Derek Fisher, the Lakers guard, gave no indication what he thought the player representatives would decide.

“(The revised proposal) does not meet us entirely on the system issues we felt were extremely important to close this deal out,” Fisher said, “so at this point we’ve decided to take a step back.

“We’ll go back as an executive committee, as a board, confer with our player reps and some additional players over the next few days and then we’ll make decisions about what our next steps will be at that point.

“Obviously, we’d like to continue to negotiate and find a way to get a deal done, but right now it’s not that time.”

If Fisher is hoping rejection of the proposal by the player representatives will produce more talks, Stern made it clear it won’t happen.

There are ancillary issues – union executive director Billy Hunter identified age limit for draftees and disciplinary issues among these – that will have to be negotiated even if the union accepts the league’s revised offer, but Stern stressed that the owners have gone as far as they will go on the “A list” issues that have consumed the last week.

Asked if the league’s offer was indeed a “last, best” proposal, Stern didn’t equivocate.

“We took pains, out of respect to the efforts of everybody, not to characterize it precisely that way, but if this offer is not accepted then we will revert to our 47 percent proposal.”

Hunter said the player representatives will determine the union’s next move.

“There has been movement by the NBA,” he said. “Obviously, not enough. The question is how will those reps respond when we sit down with them next week. We want to get them in here next week, hopefully Monday, Tuesday at the latest.

“Now let’s decide what we are going to do: Engage the NBA again or what are our other options.”

The player representatives could decide to put the proposal to a vote of the entire membership of the union, but at least one executive committee member, the Spurs’ Matt Bonner, would oppose such a move.

Bonner, who prefers that the union’s board ask the league to continue negotiating, said he would vote against a proposal to submit the league’s proposal to the full membership.

One of the union’s other options could be a disclaimer of interest in continuing as the bargaining entity for the players or the movement, already underway by some players, to decertify the union by a vote of all players. Either action would clear the way for an anti-trust lawsuit by the players against the league.

Disclaimer of interest would allow for an immediate filing; decertification is a much longer process that would allow negotiations to continue in the interim.

The owners were represented Thursday by the same five men who were in the room Wednesday: Stern, deputy commissioner Adam Silver, Spurs owner Peter Holt, and attorneys Dan Rube and Rick Buchanan. The NBPA team on Thursday grew, Bonner, Chris Paul, Theo Ratliff, Keyon Dooling, and Roger Mason of the union’s executive committee joining Fisher, Hunter, outside attorney Jeffrey Kessler and economist Kevin Murphy.

NBA deadline on hold as talks go on

By Mike Monroe
mikemonroe@express-news.net

NEW YORK – Deadline Day became Dialogue Day for the NBA.

A league ultimatum that had threatened to seriously set back negotiations aimed at ending the NBA’s lockout was set aside so talks could resume.

Twelve hours of talks that began Wednesday afternoon produced little in the way of progress, but for now, time will stand still while the talks continue, beginning with another session today.

It will be the 133rd day since the players were locked out on July 1.

“We have sort of stopped the clock,” Commissioner David Stern said after a 12-hour session that ended after 1 in the morning at a midtown Manhattan hotel.

Frozen in time was Stern’s deadline for acceptance of an offer that included a 50-50 split of basketball related income.

Stern’s warning to the union after mediated weekend bargaining sessions ended in failure had been simple: Accept by the 5 p.m. close of business on Wednesday a league’s offer or face a much worse offer in the future.

The post-deadline offer, Stern said, would be re-set to 47 percent of revenue for the players, with a “flex” salary cap the union already has deemed a hard cap. Further, the re-set offer will seek to roll back current contracts.

The threat continues to hang over players’ heads, but until this latest round of talks is declared a failure, Stern won’t wield it.

“It was our understanding going in that at the end of the negotiating session, whether it ends today or it ends tomorrow, that’s when our offer reverts. But we weren’t, in the middle of discussions, going to say, ‘OK we shouldn’t have taken that break. Stop the clock, it’s all over.’

“We’re trying to demonstrate our good faith and I think that the union is trying to demonstrate its good faith.”

On Wednesday, the threat didn’t appear in the negotiating room, according to Billy Hunter, executive director of the National Basketball Players’ Association.

“No, it was not (in the room),” he said. “They had sent us a letter indicating the 47 percent deal would occur if we did not reach accord by 5 p.m. today. Because of the nature of the negotiations and the fact there has been so much give and take they have basically agreed to freeze the deadline.”

Despite all that give and take on Wednesday, neither side said much progress was made.

“Nothing was worked out today,” Stern said. “We’ve agreed to convene here tomorrow at noontime and I would not read into this optimism or pessimism. We just continue to negotiate as we continue to negotiate.”

Hunter said the agreement to meet Thursday was an indication of a positive tenor to the talks.

“There was enough give and take on both sides that it merited our coming back tomorrow,” he said.

The union had asked for Wednesday’s negotiations after a meeting of player representatives from 29 of the 30 NBA teams that ended with solid support of the union’s executive committee and Hunter.

Negotiations Wednesday centered on “system” issues the players insist they must have if they are to agree to a 50-50 split of basketball related income.

Wednesday’s talks involved smaller groups than last weekend’s sessions. Stern, Deputy Commissioner Adam Silver and Spurs owner Peter Holt, chairman of the owners’ labor relations committee represented the league, along with league attorneys Rick Buchanan and Dan Rube.

Union preside Derek Fisher, union vice-president Mo Evans, Hunter, outside counsel Jeffrey Kessler, attorney Ron Klempner and economist Kevin Murphy represented the players.