NBPA Executive Director Billy Hunter says players not willing to cave in – NBA Lockout Update
Billy Hunter has said that the NBA players are not going to back down any more than they already have in the current labour dispute. The NBA locked out its players on July 1st after disagreements over a new Collective
Bargaining Agreement (CBA) and the matter remains unresolved since then.
NBA owners have met consistently with the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) over the last month or so, to try and work out a deal but progress has not been forth coming.
The NBA players have certain criteria that they believe must be met in a new CBA and the NBA has its own. The two sides are scheduled to continue negotiations, this time with a federal mediator, soon.
Still, Hunter underlined the players’ stance just before going into a NBPA meeting on Friday, October 14, 2011,
"I've got a group of ballplayers who are sophisticated enough and they've said to me, 'Billy, hold the line. This is what we want you to do.' So I'm doing the players' bidding. I may be negotiating with a short deck, or a small
deck, but we're negotiating.” He told ESPN in Los Angeles, where the meeting took place.
"So while we're willing to make some concessions, which we've already demonstrated, we're not willing to do or make as many concessions as the NBA wants us to make," Hunter continued. "It's too disproportionate. It doesn't make
sense. Particularly when our players are the product."
Hunter was referring to the players’ offer of coming down to a 53 percent share of the Basketball Related Income (BRI) of which they got 57 percent in the previous CBA. That is a significant concession which would amount to over
a billion dollars over the course of a new CBA, but the owners want much more from the players.
For starters, they have stuck to demanding that players take just 47 percent of the BRI, even though they offered a 50-50 split in a last ditch effort to save NBA season games, but have since retracted that. They also want a stricter
salary cap structure, something the players will not discuss, labelling it as a blood issue.
The two sides, therefore, remain apart on virtually all issues and their failure to bridge the gap has already cost the NBA 100 games that were scheduled from November 1st to November 14th. In addition to
that, the NBA training camps, rookie transition camps and the preseason games have also been lost.
However all that would pale in comparison to the likely cancellation of the entire 2011-2012 NBA season, if a deal is not reached soon. The last time there was a lockout in the NBA, a 50 game season was salvaged, but pundits believe
even that might not be possible this time around.
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