Player’s Union disputes David Stern as both sides draw battle lines: NBA Labour Dispute Update
With the NBA officially entering lockout on Friday, the players and the owners have dropped all pretences and already taken their battle into the public domain. The two sides had largely kept their discussions under the wraps for
the last year or so, but after failing to reach a solution the gloves finally appear to be coming off.
The league told the players the lockout will begin during the last meeting held between the sides on Thursday. The league owners came out of the meeting in an aggressive mood and NBA Commissioner David Stern fired the first salvo
in his interview, scoffing at the latest proposal by the players, under which he claimed “the players would increase their compensation from the current range of $5 million to approximately $7 million” while the owners continue to suffer losses.
David Stern’s criticism stemmed from the owner’s demands that the players should make less money to cover for the losses of the 22 NBA franchises. Stern assessment showed the players in a bad light for demanding even more money
than they were currently being paid.
The National Basketball Players Association though vehemently opposes the claims and suggested that the Commissioner was not telling the whole story to the press.
Jeffrey Kessler, the leading legal counsel for the players union’s rubbished David Stern’s assertions immediately. Kessler said that the players had actually offered to lower their percentage of share in the Basketball Related
Income, or BRI, from 57 percent to somewhere around 54 percent.
However, he maintained that the NBA is projected to grow as a business and the league gave the $7 million number on its own after calculating the how much the players would earn from the increased revenue,
“The NBA is projecting massive revenue growth,” Kessler said. ”If you give the players any percentage of revenue, no matter what it is, if the league’s revenue grows massively, salaries will go up. Their statement about the average
salary going up to $7 million must mean they think the NBA is going to be phenomenally successful, which we applaud.”
The idea that the players would earn more if the league earns more, while earning a lesser percentage as compared to what’s agreed in the current CBA seems perfectly plausible. However David Stern’s demeanour while making the claim
would suggest that the NBA want the player’s to keep earning a set amount, lesser than what they earn now, and the owners to take all of the revenue coming in from the growth of the league.
If that is actually the case one can understand why the players did not give in to the demands of the NBA and they could further dig their heels in after the lockout begins.
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