NBA Labor Talks Take Bad Turn

Returning to the bad old days of labor acrimony, the NBA announced Wednesday that it was cutting off negotiations with the NBA Players Assn.

Instead of the love-fest the two sides started at the All-Star game in Denver in February, they ended talks and traded charges Wednesday, increasing the chances the league will lock the players out July 1.

The three-month era of good feeling ended with a bang. The league said that after meeting with prominent player agents, the union backed out of agreement on several points, including the league’s key demand, reducing the length of contracts from seven years to five.

The union made no statement, but ESPN’s Greg Anthony said union director Billy Hunter, who is black, told him the league’s suggestion the agents were running things was “racist” and “bigoted.”

In a statement, Deputy Commissioner Russ Granik said of talks with the union, “At the conclusion of a bargaining session on Sunday, April 17 we thought we were very close to a deal, with only a few items remaining to be compromised.

“On April 19, a day after the Players Association met with a group of player agents, we were informed that the Players Association could no longer agree to a previously committed five-year rule on length of contracts. Then, last week, after promising a written proposal to form the basis of a new agreement, the union instead advised us orally that it needed to backtrack on several other essential terms that had already been resolved.

“Since we are at a loss as to how we can possibly reach a new deal that is in any way consistent with the principal terms that we have been discussing for many months, there are no further meetings scheduled at this time.”

Said an agent, who was at the April 19 meeting, who asked to remain anonymous:

“They [union officials] never represented that they had made a deal. They just went through the different issues and asked our opinion. They never represented they were close to a deal.”

Commissioner David Stern, a hard bargainer, said he almost closed the league down before making this deal in January 1999. Despite apprehension on both sides, however, the six-year deal, which capped superstar contracts at around $100 million but raised minimums, so that a 10-year veteran was guaranteed at least $1 million, came to be accepted by both sides.

Said Steve Kauffman, a Malibu-based agent who didn’t attend the meeting:

“You got a deal six years ago that wasn’t perfect. Some teams didn’t like the luxury tax and some players and agents didn’t like certain things.

“But basically, the system works. Basketball is doing as good or better than it was six years ago. So how do you get involved in totally concessionary bargaining?”

Stern says he only wants to “tweak” the current deal, shortening the length of contracts and instituting an age limit that would send 18- and 19-year-olds to the development league.

Stern has decreed several “soft” lockouts, in which no business can be transacted over the summer when there are no games and no one loses money. The real bargaining then begins again in August or September before the Oct. 1 opening of training camps.

However, this season, with NBA sponsors anxious after the NHL closed down, Stern made it no secret he wanted a quick deal.

“It’s the opening prayer of every meeting,” Stern said in February.

Said a high league official in February: “God help us if we can’t make a deal because this system works pretty well for both sides.”

If the sides are close on the issues, Wednesday’s introduction of race may pose a problem. Race has always been an undercurrent, with a predominantly black union and a predominantly white league office, but has never surfaced as an issue in itself.