Tag: the NBA

Stern details specifics of ultimatum in letter

By Howard Beck, New York Times

NEW YORK — The ultimatum issued by the NBA to its players over the weekend not only threatens them with a worse labor deal but also a massive pay cut if they do not make a deal by Wednesday afternoon.

A letter sent by David Stern, the commissioner of the NBA, to the players union Sunday contrasts the proposal on the table — highlighted by a 50-50 split of revenues — with a “reset” proposal that would cut the players’ share to 47 percent, roll back current contracts, impose a hard salary cap and reduce contract lengths.

The salary rollback, which was part of the NBA’s first controversial proposal in 2010, had not been included in any league proposal for many months, and it was not publicly mentioned by Stern when he announced the ultimatum Saturday.

But the rollback was included in the letter Stern sent to Billy Hunter, the union’s executive director. A copy of the letter was obtained by the New York Times.

The union has until 5 p.m. Wednesday to accept the NBA’s last proposal or have it replaced by the reset proposal, Stern wrote.

The NBA’s current proposal to the players includes a soft salary cap, a 50 percent share of revenues for players and these features:

• Salary-cap and luxury-tax levels in Years 1 and 2 of the new agreement will be no less than they were in 2010-11. By Year 3, they will be adjusted downward to conform to the new system.

• Sign-and-trade deals and the biannual exception will be available only to nontaxpaying teams.

• Extend-and-trade deals, like the one signed by Carmelo Anthony last season, won’t be allowed.

• The midlevel exception will be set at $5 million for nontaxpaying teams, with a maximum length between three and four years (alternating annually). The value of the exception will grow by 3 percent annually, starting in Year 3.

• The midlevel exception will be set at $2.5 million for taxpaying teams, with a maximum length of two years, and cannot be used in consecutive years.

• A 10 percent escrow tax will be withheld from player salaries, to ensure that player earnings do not exceed 50 percent of league revenues.

• Maximum contract lengths will be five years for “Bird” free agents and four years for others.

• Players will be paid a prorated share of their 2011-12 salaries, based on games played once the season starts.

• Team and player contract options will be prohibited in new contracts, other than rookie deals. But a player can opt out of the final year of a contract if he agrees to zero salary protection (i.e., if it is nonguaranteed).

The “reset” proposal features a flex-cap system that contains an absolute salary ceiling — to be set $5 million above the average team salary. In addition, the NBA would roll back existing contracts “in proportion to system changes in order to ensure sufficient market for free agents.”

Some of the other major differences in the “reset” proposal:

• The midlevel exception would be set at $3 million in Year 1, with a maximum length of three years, and would grow at 3 percent annually.

• Maximum salaries would be reduced.

• Contracts would be limited to four years for “Bird” free agents and three years for others, but each team could give a five-year deal to one designated player.

Both proposals include an “amnesty” provision that will allow every team to waive one player and have 100 percent of his salary removed from the cap.

All’s quiet on Spurs’ opener that wasn’t

By Jeff McDonald
jmcdonald@express-news.net

At precisely the moment the Spurs’ season was supposed to take life Wednesday night, the ATT Center stood dark and dead, its empty parking lot and bolted doors providing the most literal symbol yet of the NBA’s ongoing labor standoff.?

Three miles away at Tony’s Bar, the lights were on, and the night was young.

Eight patrons populated the snug, white stucco building a brisk walk from Alamo Plaza, sipping cheap Bud Light and $3 red wine. A Tejano number blared from the jukebox while a mirror ball sparkled and spun over a tumbleweed-vacant dance floor.

Above the bar, a television was showing a situation comedy on mute. Nobody was watching.

“Just a normal, unbusy day,” said Tony Lopez, the bar’s owner.

Wednesday was supposed to be anything but.

Had it not been for the NBA lockout, which has already devoured all of November’s schedule and has December in its callous crosshairs, the Spurs would have opened the season at 7:30 p.m. against Milwaukee at the ATT Center.

And then, Lopez says, you really would have seen his place jumping.

“I would have had people calling all afternoon, trying to reserve the tables close to the TVs,” said Lopez, who opened his bar in November 1999, months after the league’s last work stoppage was resolved. “That’s just not the case.”

Wednesday night — Opening Night that Wasn’t — found fans across town adjusting to a new normal, all the while rooting for the timely return of the old one.

A lifelong San Antonian, Lopez lives and dies with his Spurs. He wears his fandom on the walls of his establishment, which is speckled with Spurs memorabilia, some of it vintage.

A newer sign, handmade out of yellow poster board and Magic Marker and posted on the bar’s front entrance, belies its owner’s underlying bitterness about the NBA’s endless labor tug-o-war.

“Boycott All NBA Products,” it reads, in Lopez’s own scrawl.

“I think we need to ‘Occupy the ATT Center,’” Lopez joked, referencing the economic protests that have become en vogue across the country. “It’s really sad.”

At Fatso’s Sports Garden on Bandera Road, the city’s oldest existing sports bar, owner Steve Wilkinson has an equally dim view of the NBA’s labor struggles.

“I’m just hoping those greedy S.O.B.’s can come to an agreement,” he said.

Wilkinson expects interest in the NFL, college football and college basketball to help his business weather the absence of pro hoops through November.

If the lockout stretches much further than that, however, Wilkinson predicts he will begin to feel the pinch.

“After December and January, the Spurs games pay our bills,” said Wilkinson, who opened Fatso’s in 1986. “That’s where our survival is.”

Similarly, Mike Griffith, a spokesman for Buffalo Wild Wings, said that chain — which boasts seven area locations — is not expecting an NBA-related loss of revenue until football season ends.

“After the Super Bowl, I think that’s when we’ll see the biggest impact,” Griffith said.

One night into the Spurs’ postponed regular season, the difference was already noticeable at Fatso’s.

Wilkinson said no Spurs game Wednesday night meant one or two fewer waitresses, one or two fewer cooks, one fewer bartender.

“That’s four or five employees who are not going to make money because the Spurs aren’t playing,” Wilkinson said. “It’s like a snowball. It affects a lot of people.”

Over at Tony’s, where Lopez can usually be found manning the bar himself, Wednesday night was a little too typical. A little too “unbusy.”

It’s not just Spurs fans who fill Lopez’s registers on game nights. Among his in-season regulars are ushers, concessionaires and parking attendants who wander over from the ATT Center after the final horn.

“There’s no money for them,” Lopez said. “So there’s no money for me.”

For now, all Lopez can do is wait for millionaire players and billionaire owners to come to an accord on how to split their wealth, so he can maybe sell a few more $2 longnecks.

“Let’s see what kind of agreement they come to,” Lopez said. “Maybe then I can make up a lot of lost business.”

Until then, the lights remain on at Tony’s. The mirror ball spins. The jukebox sings.

The TV is on, with nobody watching.

NBA expected to cancel more regular-season games on Tuesday

By Houston Chronicle

According to the , the NBA plans to cancel two more weeks of the regular season on Tuesday.

The latest cancellation would run through Nov. 28 and total at least 102 games.

The lockout began July 1 and there appears to be no end in sight as talks between the owners and players union broke down late last week. No talks have been scheduled for this week.