Derek Fisher does not concur with Roger Mason Jr’s optimism about NBA season
Vice President Roger Mason Jr. is on players union representative who has been very hopeful the next NBA season will start on time.
His optimism was the timely commencement of the 2011-12 season was recently toned down by the current Player’s Union President Derek Fisher. After being asked by several reporters about Mason Jr’s comment on twitter, “looking like
a season”, Fisher said
“Roger's a very valuable member of our committee, I think he's well-aware that we're no closer to having a season today than we were at any other point. I think he's clear on where we are now.”
Mason did not attend the last two sessions of negations between the players association and the league owners and when asked about the specific comments, he told the reporter that his twitter account had been hacked.
With time running out and the NBA training camps and exhibition games just around the corner, pressure is building on both sides to come up with a solution over revenue sharing, which has been the main bone of contention so far
in the talks for the new CBA.
Talking about the two recent two meetings in Manhattan, David Stern, the NBA commissioner said, “We think it's getting to be an important time and it's a good idea to have larger-group meetings at this point, I don't really know
that it's positive or negative.”
The last two meetings between the NBA owners and the Players Association raised hopes for a solution. This was the first time when both parties met on two consecutive days in New York City, however at the end of the negotiations,
it was same old story with both side blaming each other for the stand still.
The labour dispute between the Players Union and the league’s owners led the league into lockout on July 1st when the old Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) expired. In the new CBA that was proposed, the NBA owners
wanted clauses like hard salary cap aka the flex cap and also wanted to increase their share in the basketball related income. The players agreed to reduce their shared to income from 57 to 53 percent, but the owners want it to be in the lower forties, a demand
which the players flatly refused.
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