Ex players union head Charles Grantham talks lockout; Shows optimism: NBA Update
Charles Grantham, who used to be the in charge of players union two decades ago, recently recalled his time and the difficulties the league faced back then. The image of the NBA was quite bad at that time, with the players involved
in the disgraceful activities such as drug abuse and the owners not being uniform in their policies.
Due to that image, the game more time to flourish in USA as compared to other American sports. However, it all started to change when the current league’s Commissioner David Stern appeared on the scene with a fundamental idea to
introduce the salary cap plan and guaranteed contracts for the players, who were also entitled to a percentage of league’s revenue. Stern used to work under Commissioner Larry O’Brien as a vice president.
At the same time, Grantham was an official under union head Larry Fleisher and recalling those times he told that,
“We were struggling looking for a system that would work for both of us and, at the same time, get our business back on track or get it in line with what we felt should be a growth industry. So Stern and those guys threw it out
there, and Larry and I sat back and said, ‘Well, you know what? Given where we are, it may make sense if we can guarantee that the minimum percentage would be X.’”
Stern’s idea worked big time and the league saw new heights after that. NBA emerged in the years to come and stars like Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Michael Jordan helped the cause immensely. Gradually, the revenue sharing percentage
settled between 53 and 57.
The new business model grasped the attention of the new investors and it boosted the prices of the franchises. With a healthier TV deal players wages also increased. Therefore, since then guaranteed revenue sharing remained the
focal point of the CBA discussions between the players and league.
Considering the current scenario Grantham, who teaches a negotiations course at Seton Hall, told that,
“Consequently, you can start negotiating a year-and-a-half out, but it is going to wind up coming down to the last few minutes or few days. I am optimistic this will get done.”
The players had already dropped their revenue sharing percentage to 53 from 57, which in itself was huge step on their part, but owners still want to drag that rate down and also looking for a hard salary cap, as they want to get
as much as they can from the players in these negotiations.
However, according to Grantham hard or soft salary cap doesn’t matter because NBA already has a hard salary cap. According to him, it used to be soft back in 1994 when it had no rookie wage scale, full exceptions and no upper limit
in player agreement.
The solution to this problem in Grantham’s view is that both sides should become problem solvers rather than negotiators. Otherwise, at the end of the day both will be standing on the losing side.
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