David Stern says Miami Heat owner Micky Arison is on board with the rest of NBA owners
NBA Commissioner David Stern has moved to quell speculation that Micky Arison and some owners of large market teams are not in favour with the hard line adopted by the league in labour negotiations. Arison had posted some comments
on the social networking website, Twitter, which set off alarms in the NBA headquarters.
The Miami Heat was subsequently fined $500,000 by Stern for breaking the owners’ code of silence about the NBA lockout. The fine was 5 times more than previous such fines which raised further doubts that the Miami Heat owner was
being punished for letting the cat out of the bag.
Stern though doesn’t believe so.
He is adamant that the Arison was on board with the approach adopted by the NBA and said his tweets were taken out of context.
"He believes his tweets were taken out of context and understands our concern about them," Stern told the New York Times. "And he's very much on board with the other 29 owners about the deal that we want."
Arison had responded to being called greedy on twitter by an NBA fan by posting “you are barking at the wrong owner.” It was a clear indication that the billionaire was suggesting small market owners were to blame for the NBA lockout.
He also posted a few more hints but removed those hours later. The NBA authorities and droves of fans picked up on them in time though and it created a media storm for Stern to deal with. The Commissioner was swift in his response,
and ruthless, as evidenced by the heavy fine.
In the interview, Stern said that the timing of Arison’s tweets hurt the league’s cause more than the actual content.
"It was more about his timing," Stern said. Arison posted the comments on Friday night, hours after another round of negotiations on a new Collective Bargaining Agreement collapsed. "We're trying very hard to get a deal done with
the players, or we were, and we don't need any external distractions to that focus."
It is pertinent to note that Billy Hunter had hinted earlier that the owners might not be as united as stern makes them out to be. Hunter, who is the executive director of the National Basketball Players Association, had also suggested
that some larger market owners, such as Mark Cuban of the Dallas Mavericks, would be happy to do away with the salary cap.
Although Stern and the NBA have denied those assertions, they have admitted that it would be hard to bring all owners together on the issue of revenue sharing, with larger market owners not willing to give away all their profits
in the name of competitiveness.
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