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Mixed outlook for NBA labor peace
One day after the NBA suspended collective bargaining talks with the players' union, each side had a different take on how grave the situation has become. Union director Billy Hunter didn't see things as too bleak to salvage, while commissioner David Stern said the union should expect to see changes in the owners' next offer when the sides meet again — whenever that may be. "This is just a bump in the road," Hunter said Thursday. "We're going to get a deal. Sooner or later, we'll come back to the table." Hunter and Stern were both in Washington to testify before a congressional committee investigating steroid use in professional sports. The NBA's steroids policy was branded "pathetic" and "a joke" by lawmakers, and Stern said he wants to add more in-season tests, double the penalty for a first offense to 10 games, and kick players out of the league for a third positive test. Hunter said the union supports some changes. But those changes will only come when the sides decide to sit down together again, and there was no telling when that might happen. The league's collective bargaining agreement expires June 30. "I'm not confident, because we're confounded as to how we can make a deal at this point," Stern said after testifying. "I'm concerned that there will be a lockout." "We were negotiating. We thought we had a deal, or close to a deal, and then it was pulled off the table," Stern said. "Every day that we don't make a deal, damage will occur and the changes in our offer will be apparent down the road."
The sides had been publicly optimistic over the prospects for reaching a new deal until last Friday, when Stern downgraded his outlook to "hopeful." That came just hours after two union attorneys gave an oral outline of the union's new offer and, according to the league, changed its position on several key issues. The league claims the union changed its position on the length of long-term contracts (current rules allow a maximum length of seven years), the size of annual raises in long-term contracts (current rules limit those increases to 12.5 percent annually for players who re-sign with their teams; 10 percent for players changing teams as free agents), and changes to the escrow and luxury tax systems designed to limit salary growth and penalize the highest-spending teams. Hunter said it was "ludicrous" for the league to suggest he had agreed to a five-year maximum length for guaranteed contracts. Hunter also defended his statement from a day earlier that he was offended, as a black man, with the league's implication that a group of agents were manipulating the negotiations. "I thought it was justified under the circumstances," he said. "I went through this seven years ago when there was all of the rhetoric about who was running the show. I just think it's a tactic that the commissioner and the NBA uses, and when they pushed that button this time, I just thought it was appropriate to respond." Stern was perplexed by Hunter's comments. "I've worked with him for years, and I think those kinds of statements by him are below him. I think he's a solid leader from what I know, and I honestly have no idea what he's talking about," Stern said.
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