DeShawn Stevenson doesn’t think NBPA Executive Billy Hunter is doing a good job – NBA Update
Dallas Mavericks shooting guard DeShawn Stevenson isn’t impressed by National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) Executive Director Billy Hunter. The Mavericks star has criticized Hunter for not decertifying sooner, because the owners were never going to be fair in the labour dispute.
The NBA owners locked out players on July 1 after the expiry of an old Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA). Players and owners have been negotiating for a new CBA for over a year, but they haven’t found an answer yet.
Stevenson, an NBA World Champion last season with the Mavericks, is pretty sure that a solution won’t be found any time soon. He thinks the chance to save the NBA season 2011-2012 has already been blown.
“For me, personally, I don’t think there will be a season,” Mavericks guard DeShawn Stevenson(notes) said recently at Drew Gooden’s(notes) Make-A-Wish charity game. “Right now there is just a lot of bad blood and [the owners] keep putting offers out that we’re rejecting. So we’re not going anywhere.”
And Stevenson blames Hunter for the turmoil.
The star never had any expectations from the owners. He believed their greed was visible right from the onset and that they wouldn’t talk fair unless the players dragged them into a federal court.
Hunter though was focused on negotiating on a table and he ruled out any decertification of the union, which would have allowed players to file class action lawsuits against the NBA.
“I felt like we should have decertified in July,” Stevenson said according to Yahoo!. “I feel like Billy Hunter is doing a horrible job because basically now [the owners] know our hand. The media knows our hand. The owners know our hand.”
Hunter was finally forced to change his approach not by the players, but by a ridiculous ultimatum by NBA Commissioner David Stern. Stern issued an ultimatum for the players to accept what he called the best offer owners could make. If the players didn’t accept it, Stern said the offers would get even worse and there would be no negotiating with the players union at all.
This forced the union’s hand, which rejected the ultimatum by Stern last Monday. They also disclaimed the union and filed two separate lawsuits against the NBA, which have since been consolidated in a single court in Minnesota.
The problem Stevenson and others, such as NBA player agents, have with Hunter is that he left it too late. A court case at this time would mean many months of legal wrangling, for which there is no time. Stern has cancelled 45 days worth of regular season games as it is, with a lengthy legal battle now appearing on the horizon, it is hard to see how anything from the season could be salvaged.
Tags: