Derrick Rose rips owners over the NBA lockout – NBA Labour Dispute Update
Chicago Bulls super star Derrick Rose had some hard words for NBA owners, when he spoke to reporters in Chicago recently. The point guard minced no words and laid the blame of the lockout, completely on the owners.
The NBA lockout began on July 1st after the NBA owners and players failed to thrash out a new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA). Since then, the NBA owners, led by Commissioner David Stern, have met with the National
Basketball Players Association (NBPA) repeatedly, but have so far failed to bridge the gap.
Now Rose seems to have had enough.
"It's sad. It's very sad," Rose said of the lockout.
Rose alleged that it was the vested interests of owners, which had deprived the NBA fans of basketball so far and are now threatening the entire season,
"Everybody knows it's not our fault. It's definitely not our fault. If it were up to us, we'd be out there playing. But I think that it's wrong. I know (the owners) can easily take care of it and not take advantage of people. But
I guess that's how people are.”
The NBA owners have indeed made steep demand of the players in the new CBA. The owners want NBA players to take just 47 percent of the Basketball Related Income (BRI), after they were guaranteed 57 percent in the previous deal.
A 10 percent hit, which translates to billions of dollars over the duration of the CBA, has understandably infuriated the NBA players.
There are strong differences on other key issues as well, such as the salary cap structure and guaranteed contracts, which have proved detriment to any progress in the negotiations.
Derrick accused the owners of following a pre-set narrative during the meetings, and said they simply did not care for what the players had to say. He suggested that it would be very hard for the players to agree to anything if
the owners kept up this attitude.
"(The owners are) not thinking about anything we're saying. They're not taking it into consideration, nothing that we're trying to give them. We'll just have to see how it goes."
The lockout has so far cost the NBA training camps, preseason and the first two weeks in of the regular season. If a do-or-die meeting on Tuesday fails, then some more NBA games are set to be cancelled.
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