NBA, Union To Meet Tuesday
NEW YORK -- Officials from the NBA and its players' union are finalizing details of a bargaining session that will take place Tuesday in New York and possibly extend to Wednesday, a person familiar with the details told CBSSports.com.
With the prospect of two days of negotiations as the calendar marches toward the eventual canceling of regular season games in less than three weeks, National Basketball Players Association executive director Billy Hunter has postponed a regional meeting that had been scheduled for Tuesday in Miami and will stay in New York for talks with the league, the person with knowledge of the meeting said.
On Friday, the league indefinitely postponed the start of training camps and canceled preseason games scheduled for Oct. 9-15. Deputy commissioner Adam Silver said the schedule will be further evaluated on Oct. 1. It is likely that the league would have to begin canceling regular season games by Oct. 14 if it is unable to reach an agreement with the union on a new collective bargaining ageement.
The precise composition and format for the negotiations is still being determined due to a scheduling conflict of at least one key member of the parties that have made progress in small-group settings since Aug. 31. Once that is resolved, the goal is to continue with the small-group sessions with commissioner David Stern, Silver, deputy general counsel Dan Rube and Spurs owner Peter Holt representing the league and Hunter, NBPA president Derek Fisher, general counsel Ron Klempner and economist Kevin Murphy representing the players.
Tuesday and Wednesday represent the last opportunities to bargain this week with several key members of both sides' negotiating teams observing Rosh Hashanah on Thursday and Friday.
Negotiations resume after the league made a slight but significant revision last week to its most recent proposal on how to divide the sport's approximately $4 billion in basketball-related income (BRI). Sources say the owners' latest economic proposal amounted to an average 46 percent of BRI for the players over the life of the deal, which the union deemed "unacceptable." But the revised proposal represented a 2 percent increase from the owners' June proposal of a flat $2.01 billion annual guarantee for the players in the first eight years of a 10-year deal. That proposal started at about a 50-50 split of BRI in the 2011-12 season, but with revenues projected to increase about 4 percent a year, the players' share would shrink over time -- to about 39 percent in the eighth year of the deal.
The latest proposal from the owners called for the players' share to decline at a slower rate, sources said. According to one of the people familiar with the negotiations, the players most recently proposed a six-year CBA that would begin with a salary freeze in the first year ($2.17 billion, same as they made last season) and then go to 54 percent -- a 3 percent decline from the players' guarantee of 57 percent in the six-year deal that expired July 1.
Hunter also has signaled a willingness to negotiate below the 54 percent offer, with the caveat that it not include the implementation of a hard salary cap. Sources say both sides have expressed a willingness to negotiate on system and cap issues once they agree on the economic aspects of the deal.
