Players vow not to agree on an unfavourable proposition to avoid lockout: NBA Labour Dispute Update
With the Collective Bargaining Agreement or CBA deadline out just a week away, the NBA players have made it very clear that they will not accept any unfavourable proposition to avoid the lockout.
On Thursday, the player’s union president Derrick Fisher stated that they will be standing against any unfavourable deal, "We'd love to avoid a lockout, but we're unified in the sense of not being afraid if that's what we're faced with,"
Around Sixty players joined the Los Angeles Lakers guard Fisher to have an update on the negotiations with the owners. Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce from the Boston Celtics, Blake Griffin from Los Angeles Clippers, Jason Terry from the Dallas Mavericks and Chris Paul from the New Orleans Hornet were among the 60 players.
The veteran power forward Garnett admitted that this whole issue was very unfortunate.
“It’s very unfortunate "It's unfortunate, to be honest, because we have great momentum right now. I think the league is, as far as anticipation and the leading stories and the careers that you can follow, you know Dirk (Nowitzki) finally winning, I mean there's multiple stories that are intriguing right now and it's just unfortunate that we're all going through this right now to sort of slow that down."
Kevin was however adamant that the owners and the league officials are the guilty party in this mess and they are trying to take control which has created this situation. Billy Hunter, executive director of NBA certified Kevin’s comment and made a strong statement that the owners are trying to break the union to achieve what they want to achieve.
“I think their real intentions are still what they were before, and I think that is to lock us out in an effort to break the union and to achieve what they want to achieve”.
Previously, Billy had stated that he sensed a glimpse of hope when the players proposed to cut down their share of revenue for the next five years by 500 million dollars. However, the owners offered a 10-year system which favoured them more and the whole deal again went into a deadlock.
On the other hand, NBA’s spokesman Michael Bass said that on the quest of avoiding the lockout, the league has made a number of proposals to accommodate the players’ objections> when asked about the player union’s public statements , he termed them as very unfortunate. The old CBA expires on 30th June and there is not much time left to prolong the issue any further. After expectations had arisen, that after Tuesday talks, the dialogue may be headed for a breakthrough, the statements from the players union have dampened the hopes of an agreement on Friday.
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