Player’s attorney David Boies says greed will cost David Stern and the NBA owners
David Boies, the legal attorney representing the NBA players, has said David Stern and the NBA owners are in for a rude awakening.
The attorney, who represented the NFL in their very recent legal battle against the NFLPA, is on the players’ side in the NBA labour dispute and he believes the owners have overplayed their hand.
Boies represented the NFL when the football players filed antitrust suits against them, and lost a case. Now, he is representing the NBA players who have filed a case against the owners, and he believes they have an even stronger
case than the NFLPA.
For months, Boies sat waiting and frustrated as the NBA owners, led by Commissioner Stern, pounded union executive director Billy Hunter and President Derek Fisher on the negotiating table, stealing one concession after another
from the often hapless players.
The tables have turned though, and the owners only have themselves to blame. Stern and the owners, in their insatiable greed, went too far when they issued an ultimatum to the players last week, and Boies says that will cost them
dearly.
"If you're in a poker game, and you run a bluff, and the bluff works, you're a hero. If someone calls your bluff, you lose. I think the owners overplayed their hand," Boies said at the National Basketball Players' Association headquarters.
"They did a terrific job of taking a very hard line and pushing the players to make concession after concession after concession, but greed is not only a terrible thing -- it's a dangerous thing."
The NBA players wanted to make a deal happen on the negotiating table. Billy Hunter and Derek Fisher took some flak too from players who wanted them to push a harder line. They also told the player agents to keep quiet when talk
of a decertification became ripe.
In the end though, their loss could turn into a win for the players. The union now has a solid case to argue in court. They wanted the negotiations to continue, but it was Stern who put an end to them.
They are confident enough to have several prominent players become plaintiffs in the two suits filed so far. Carmelo Anthony and Chauncey Billups of the New York Knicks, NBA scoring champion Kevin Durant, rookie Kawhi Leonard and
Grizzlies forward Leon Powe are plaintiffs in once case, while Minnesota Timberwolves forward Anthony Tolliver, Detroit Pistons guard Ben Gordon, free agent forward Caron Butler and Derrick Williams have been named in the second one.
Boies said that whatever happens next would be because of the arrogance and greed displayed by the owners, and no one will have any doubt who to blame if the NBA season is cancelled in its entirety.
"If it were up to the players, there would be games being played right now," he said. "There is one reason and one reason only that the season is in jeopardy and that is because the owners have locked the players out and have maintained
that lockout for several months.”
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