Mo Evans blasts David Stern and NBA owners over lockout – NBA Update
Player’s union representative, Mo Evans has launched a scathing attack on NBA owners and it’s Commissioner David Stern over the Collective Bargaining Agreement or CBA, they proposed to the players before the lockout.
The owners and the players have been at loggerheads for quite a while now over a new CBA that will replace the one that expired on June 30. The dispute is showing no signs of resolving anytime soon, and is the reason behind NBA’s
lockout, which is nearing the end of its second week.
The players wanted major portions of the previous CBA to remain in place, but the owners demanded drastic changes to a system they say has caused them losses of over 1 billion in the last few years and 300 million in the 2010-2011
season alone.
Players union rep Mo Evans blasted the league over its stance on the new CBA and said the owners are making some of the harshest demands in any professional sport,
“If we were to agree to their deal, it would be the worst collective bargaining agreement in sports history,” Evans said.
Evans continued by criticizing a system, he believed did not give the players any benefit or share in the growth of the league and took away as many of their benefits as possible.
“What they proposed to us says nothing about a partnership. We want nothing more than to grow the game and reward these great fans that have shown support for us and the NBA, but their proposal doesn’t reflect that partnership
at all. They proposed rollbacks, salary freezes and things that don’t promote any player growth or security. It was such a terrible system.”
Mo Evans outburst clearly indicates that the players are in no mood to bow down to the owners demands, as they had said when the lockout began. Some players are even packing their bags and heading for Europe in anticipation of
a long lockout. Deron Williams of the New Jersey Nets is the most high profile case so far.
Ever since the saga began, most analysts have been pointing out that the owners are perhaps being too extreme with their demands. Their claims of losses being driven by player salaries has also been called into question after financial
data revealed that as a percentage of revenue, player salaries have remained constant while other costs have increased over the last decade.
Suggestions in the media that the owners and David Stern have exaggerated their losses are also bound to have a negative impact on the league position on the matter. However many believe that the players need to give back some
of their advantages in the new CBA for the system to work.
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