NBA Commissioner David Stern believes greedy agents are trying to spoil the latest NBA proposal
After putting the ball in the union’s court by offering a revised proposal on Thursday, the NBA Commissioner David Stern has launched another tactical salvo and has warned the players that the greedy agents are trying to spoil
the latest labour deal, which is the best owners can offer.
While giving a phone interview, David Stern stated that the agents are not giving proper information to their clients about the realities of the economic proposal and pushing them to shoot down the deal.
"By some combination of mendacity and greed, the agents who are looking out for themselves rather than their clients are trying to scuttle the deal. They're engaged in what appears to be an orchestrated Twitter campaign and a series
of interviews that are designed to deny the economic realities of the proposal." Stern said.
The representatives of the players association are expected to meet on Monday and Tuesday to take votes for accepting the latest proposal or not. By the looks of the last meeting, although it was reported that the union has compromised
on the 50-50 split of the Basketball Related Income, however they are not happy with the other issues like luxury tax, and hard salary cap and seek further concessions.
Under these circumstances, while many are assuming that the players association will reject the proposal, David Stern also mentioned that agents are pushing their clients for decertification which is a losing strategy.
Stern clearly stated that the current proposal offered to the players is fair and decertifying the union won’t change the offer. In fact, it will kill hopes for the 2011-2012 season as filling an antitrust lawsuit against the league
is going to be a lengthy process and still players won’t get the leverages they seek.
"The agents misunderstand it and all it does is delay things. They themselves think that if the players decertify, then the league will change its offer. And that will not happen as a result of decertification. It's a losing strategy
for them." Stern said.
Having said that, the NBA commissioner David Stern also mentioned that there were will be no further discussion on the revised offer. In fact, the next proposal will not only call for salary rollbacks and flex cap with a hard ceiling,
the Basketball Related Income Split will be 53-47 next time in the favour of the NBA owners.
On the other hand, if players make a settlement to form a new Collective Bargaining Agreement before the deadline day in the next week, a 72-game regular season will start on 15th December.
Next week is going to be very crucial in examining that whether there will be a 2011-2012 season or not.
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