NBA REACH TENATIVE Understanding… LOCKOUT OVER!!!!

If All goes right the NBA SEASON IS BACK!!!!!!!

AFTER A 15 hour meeting…

NO DEAL!!! Fight goes to COURT.

NO DEAL!!! Now there is a GREAT chance there will be no season.

Ken Berger break down :

NEW YORK — Unable to reach a collective bargaining agreement with the NBA, the union representing the players dissolved Monday and paved the way for a potentially lengthy and ugly anti-trust lawsuit to be filed within days.

With a unanimous show-of-hands vote from as many as 50 players, the union sent a disclaimer of interest letter to commissioner David Stern, which effectively ended the National Basketball Players Association’s role as the collective bargaining agent for the players. Outside counsel Jeffrey Kessler and star attorney David Boies — whom the players met for the first time Monday — will lead the legal team that will sue the NBA alleging anti-trust violations.

“We’ve negotiated in good faith for over two years,” said Billy Hunter, who now becomes executive director of the National Basketball Players Trade Association — no longer the leader of the players’ union. “The players just felt that they’ve given enough.”

Stern, speaking live on league broadcast partner ESPN, called the players’ tactic “a charade” and characterized it as a “magical trick” that ultimately will fail.

“What they’ve done is destroyed incredible value that would’ve gone to the union membership,” Stern said. “… We were very close, and they decided to blow it up.”

Stern made no pronouncements about further cancellation of games, but added, “The calendar takes care of that.” Although the disclaimer action initiated by union executive director Billy Hunter is more expeditious than a decertification vote initiated by the players, the legal fight that will ensue certainly imperils the 2011-12 season.

During a meeting attended by the players’ executive committee, player reps from all 30 teams and about 20 more players — including superstar Kobe Bryant, Tyson Chandler, Carlos Boozer, Rajon Rondo and Elton Brand — union officials presented and explained details of the league’s most recent offer. It had been characterized as the final revised proposal the league intended to offer, and if the players didn’t accept it, Stern’s negotiating position would revert to a harsher offer — including player salaries being dervied from a 47 percent share of revenues, a hard team salary cap and rollbacks of existing contracts.

The deal on the table for the players Monday included a 50-50 split of revenues — a 12 percent reduction from their previous share of 57 percent — and a long list of system and spending restrictions. Hunter said the meeting gained momentum and changed in tone once players raised the option of decertification. They ultimately chose the more expeditious option of a disclaimer, with Hunter saying a summary judgment in the anti-trust case could possibly be reached in 60 days — about the length of time it would’ve taken the National Labor Relations Board to authorize an election through a player-initiated decertification. 

About 200 players already had signed decertification petitions, displeased with the league’s negotiating tactics and the concessions made by the union. Among these were 15 players in the meeting Monday, Hunter said.

The former union executive director said he has no intentions of withdrawing the NBPA’s unfair-labor practices charge with the NLRB, although it is not clear how the agency will view it now that the union has been dissolved.

for the article and more see CBSsports.com

Last Offer is made…

Ken Berger breaks it down quite nicely… according to Ken at CBS Sports:

 

NEW YORK — The NBA made its last offer that will contain a 50 percent revenue share for the players Thursday night, and commissioner David Stern shifted the pressure to the union by tantalizingly attaching the possibility of a 72-game season starting Dec. 15.

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

The players, expressing disappointment that the league did not respond with more system compromises after they’d signaled their willingness to accept a 50-50 revenue split, will bring the proposal to their player reps Monday or Tuesday to see if they will recommend the proposal to the union membership for a vote.

“The idea … is to sit down with them and say, ‘You sent us out to get something, here’s what we’re coming back with,'” said Billy Hunter, executive director of the National Basketball Players Association. “‘Now let’s sit down and decide what our next option is, what are we going to do.'”

The players’ options are few, and none of them particularly appealing. They can put the deal to a vote, and if passed, they would be locked into a proposal that is an unmitigated victory for the owners — one that shifts $3 billion over 10 years from the players to the owners and also dramatically restricts the rules governing team payrolls, player contracts and player movement. If the player reps tell the union leadership they want to reject the proposal, then Stern said the league’s negotiating position will revert to a 47 percent share of revenues for the players along with a hard team salary cap and rollbacks of existing contracts — the so-called “reset” proposal whose introduction at 5 p.m. Wednesday was delayed while the two parties bargained for 23 hours over the past two days.

“We have made our revised proposal,” Stern said, “and we’re not planning to make another one.”  

Another outcome likely will begin to unfold Friday before the union even decides whether to accept the proposal — and would continue to progress regardless of the outcome of next week’s player rep meeting: Agents dissatisfied with the deal the union has negotiated and the intransigence of league negotiators already have more than 200 signatures on decertification petitions which are ready to be submitted to the National Labor Relations Board requesting a vote to dissolve the union, according to a person familiar with the plans.

Such a move would threaten to torpedo whatever support there is among the union membership to approve the owners’ offer, and if it resulted in the players deciding not to vote on the proposal or voting it down, could throw the 2 1-2 year negotiations into the chaos of an anti-trust lawsuit — virtually guaranteeing that the 2011-12 season would be lost.

“The negotiations are over,” Stern said. “The negotiations on this proposal are over.” 

 

For the full story check out the direct link to Berger’s blog on CBS Sports:

Ken Berger story in full… Click me!

One last meeting scheduled before Wednesday’s Ultimatum

According to Ken Berger from CBSsports.com:

 

” Officials from the players’ union would like to arrange one more round of bargaining with the league before Wednesday’s deadline to accept the owners’ latest proposal or face a far worse one, sources confirmed to CBSSports.com Monday.

But there are fears on both sides that hard-line owners who aren’t comfortable with the deal as it stands now will resist such a meeting because they prefer the 47 percent deal with a more restrictive salary cap — the deal commissioner David Stern said Sunday would be on the table if the union rejected the existing proposal.”

The BRI is still the main issue in finding a way to end the NBA lockout. According to Chris Sheridan from sheridanhoops.com:

“On the financial split, the owners are proposing a band that would give the players between 49 and 51 percent of revenues. The players dropped from asking for 52.5 percent to 51 percent — with 1 percent of that money set aside for increased retirement benefits for both current and former players. But the players’ financial proposal was contingent on the owners dropping many of their system change demands, which the owners refused to do.”

 

        Well, we are down to the wire here folks. An ultimatum has been placed on the table by Stern and the players are getting until Weds. to make a decision on what they want to do.  Players are still also talking about decertification…. To make that happen they need 130 players on board.   Right now we are at the point where if by Wednesday things are not dealt with, major consequences for the players are going to occur….we are all going to have to wait to see just what those consequences are.