Chicago Bulls shooting guard Kyle Korver speaks up on NBA lockout – Labour Dispute Update
On Thursday, Kyle Korver added his name to the growing list of NBA players who have hit out at the league over the current lockout. The NBA has been in lockout since July 1st and there haven’t been any negotiations since
then to try and resolve the situation.
Korver, who plays for the Chicago Bulls and reached the Eastern Conference Finals last year, was distraught at the current situation when speaking during a recent interview. Korver had some harsh words for the lockout and said
he could not get his head around the perceived financial crisis when the league was making so much money and the ratings were at an all time high,
“It’s a shame,” Korver said. “The NBA makes too much money for everybody not to be making a little bit already, right?”
“How?” Korver said in frustration. “I think they made about $2.4 billion dollars last year, how does everyone not have a little bit in their pocket?”
The NBA actually reported $4 billion in revenues last season, with the players pocketing around $2.1 billion of it. That still leaves plenty of money to go around for the owners, however David Stern, commissioner of NBA, says he
league suffered overall losses of $300 million last season with 22 of the 30 NBA teams losing money.
The owners therefore proposed drastic changes to the now expired Collective Bargaining Agreement, CBA, but the players are only prepared to accept minor tweaks. The players are OK with taking a pay cut, just not to the extent demanded
by the league.
Negotiations over the new CBA started over a year ago, formally, and since then little or no progress has been made. The labour dispute came to a head after the NBA Finals ended as both parties started going to the public with
their grievances, painting the other side as the wrong one.
Around two weeks before the lockout started, it became clear that no deal would be reached by the end of the now expired CBA.
Since then the two sides have hardened their stances and an increasing number of NBA players have spoken out against the owner’s proposal which they allege would take too much money away from them. The National Basketball Player
Association, which is the representative union of the NBA players, has been openly encouraging its members to find work in Europe or elsewhere.
The league has taken a different route. NBA commissioner David Stern has imposed a ban on owners, coaches and officials of NBA franchises from contacting or speaking about any NBA player until the situation is resolved. Stern wants
them to represent a united front and all the taking to be done by himself.
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