Tag: the NFL

Sides in NBA lockout keep ball spinning

By Brian Mahoney
Associated Press

NEW YORK — After another long day of negotiations, NBA players and owners hammered out plans for another meeting.

That’s not the deal commissioner David Stern wanted, but it’s better than the cancellations that could come if talks fall through.

Both sides seemed to have plenty to talk about. After an eight-hour meeting Wednesday brought their time together to more than 24 hours over two days, federal mediator George Cohen said they would resume bargaining this afternoon.

“Everyone is extremely focused on the core issues, the difficult issues that confront them,” Cohen said.

Talks broke for the night so owners could attend meetings at another hotel. Stern left after seven hours for a presentation on revenue sharing by the owners’ planning committee.

The sides have been divided over two main issues: the division of revenues and the structure of the salary cap system.

League officials originally said they wouldn’t be available for negotiating Wednesday or today because of their board meetings. Stern wanted to bring a deal to them, saying even the Christmas games could be in jeopardy of cancellation without an agreement Tuesday.

Instead, owners will meet with players again today after their board meeting, the first time during the 111-day lockout they have bargained on three consecutive days.

“The discussions have been direct and constructive, and as far as we are concerned, we are here to continue to help assist the parties to endeavor to reach an agreement,” Cohen said.

Cohen said players and owners met in a variety of settings during mediation. Neither side commented, honoring Cohen’s request to keep the negotiations private.

Without a deal this week, Stern might have to decide when a next round of cancellations would be necessary. The season was supposed to begin Nov. 1, but all games through Nov. 14 — 100 in total — have been scrapped, costing players about $170 million in salaries.

Talks resumed Wednesday morning, just eight hours after a marathon 16-hour session. The owners’ planning committee meeting was scheduled for 2 p.m., but that was pushed back until the evening so they could keep talking with players.

After Stern left, deputy commissioner Adam Silver, the league’s lead negotiator, and Spurs owner Peter Holt, who heads the labor relations committee, led the talks with players.

Stern has said owners will have an expanded revenue sharing package among teams once the collective bargaining agreement with the players has been completed.

The union has pushed for it to be part of the CBA discussions, believing better sharing among teams would help owners address what they said was $300 million in losses last season, but Stern said recently he is confident players would approve the owners’ new system.

Players believe owners’ attempts to make the luxury tax more punitive and limit the use of spending exceptions will effectively create a hard salary cap, which they say they will refuse to accept.

Also, each side has formally proposed receiving 53 percent of basketball-related income after players were guaranteed 57 percent under the previous collective bargaining agreement.

They talked about a 50-50 split, but the players rejected that, and the league has said it won’t go beyond that number.

Unable to make any real headway in recent weeks on either item, Cohen’s presence was welcomed. He helped try to resolve the NFL’s labor dispute earlier this year.

No lockout workouts yet for Spurs, but they could be coming

The opening of NBA training camps has been officially postponed, another casualty of the league’s ongoing labor dispute, but that doesn’t mean Spurs players won’t be working out together in San Antonio sometime in the near future.

No formal get-together has been formally organized yet, but with the lockout poised to eat up the first half of October and maybe more, Spurs forward Matt Bonner says he expects at least a handful of players will convene for voluntary camp-style practices at some point.

“Up until now, we’ve been hopeful we’d get (the lockout) solved before they cancelled anything,” said Bonner, a vice president of the players union. “As things have become more real, we’ll probably talk about getting something organized.”

It’s difficult to predict how well-attended such sessions might be.

Few Spurs players live in San Antonio full-time during the offseason — Tim Duncan being the most prominent exception — making large-scale workouts difficult  to organize this point.

In addition, up until recently four players — Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, Tiago Splitter and rookie Cory Joseph — have been indisposed playing with their respective national teams in Olympic qualifying tournaments.

Complicating matters going forward, some players’ overseas obligations could mute participation at any future player-run workouts. DeJuan Blair (Russia) and Danny Green (Slovenia) have already committed to spending the lockout abroad. Parker, Splitter and Ginobili are also mulling offers to play overseas should the lockout continue.

Player-run workouts became en vogue during the NFL lockout, with players from numerous teams arranging mini-camps at local colleges or high school. Many members of the Dallas Cowboys, for instance, worked out at Southlake Carroll High School.

Among NBA teams, players from the Orlando Magic, Oklahoma City Thunder, Indiana Pacers and Golden State Warriors have pieced together lockout mini-camps this summer. Players in Cleveland are talking about doing the same.

The Spurs have yet to formulate team-wide workouts, though earlier this offseason, second-year guard James Anderson did organize workouts for a collection of young players, including Green, Gary Neal and Da’Sean Butler.

“It was mostly conditioning, a lot of individual workouts, getting up a lot of shots — a little bit of everything we could do with us four or five,” Anderson said. “We didn’t really have enough to play pickup. We were a little short on that end. But just getting together and getting some team chemistry between us was good.”

With Green in Europe and Neal enjoying the early glow of new fatherhood, even that group would be hard-pressed to reunite now. The longer the lockout persists, however, the more vital such workouts become.

Who knows? It might be fun for Spurs players to practice without Gregg Popovich yelling at them.

Stern reportedly not accepting massive salary during lockout

After undergoing heavy criticism over the last several days about his multi-million dollar salary, NBA commissioner David Stern reportedly will not be paid during the lockout.

ESPN.com reports that during the lockout that has been estimated up to $23 million per year. His contract reportedly rivals that of almost all of his players.

That massive salary earned a rebuke from Philadelphia center Spencer Hawes, who wondered in a tweet how while his players are locked out.

Stern earlier hinted that he wouldn’t accept a salary if there was a lockout.

Responding to a question at the time about whether he would drop his salary to $1 as NFL commissioner Roger Goodell did during the NFL’s lockout, Stern said: “I would say that last time (during the NBA’s 1998-99 lockout) I didn’t take a salary. I think a dollar would be too high in the event of a work stoppage.”

In the battle of public perception, leaking the fact that Stern will not be paid is good public relations for the league.

But the fact that he is paid a yearly salary commensurate with the very best players in the league makes some of the owners’ claims of poverty in the negotiations ring a little hollow.