ANALYSIS : Labor Problem Is Looming for NBA

The National Basketball Association All-Star break is past and the playoffs are just a couple of months away. But at league headquarters, in owners’ offices and in the backs of the minds of players exists a training-camp feeling.

Everyone’s bracing for the long grind that lies ahead. Not basketball games, but basketball matters.

A new labor agreement must be devised and resolved. The league is on the verge of adding two Canadian teams as it prepares to go international. The Minnesota Timberwolves, citing financial problems with their arena, are threatening to move. Escalating player salaries have many owners squirming. Other issues, smaller in scale yet important just the same, dot the calendar.

Inside its 27 arenas, the NBA continues to prosper. Attendance and TV ratings are on the ascent as the league tweaks the noses of those who questioned its staying power in the post-Jordan era. The players still have a hermetic grip on the country’s young generation with their colorful style and culture. Professional baseball and football can only drool at the NBA’s way of attracting both fans with MBAs and fans of MTV.

That’s not to suggest the game doesn’t show a few cracks. The league hopes the drop in scoring is a cycle, not a trend. Violence, though not the ugly threat it was last season, continues to be monitored with a careful eye. And the NBA could use a new marketable megastar, as evidenced by the ratings for Sunday’s All-Star Game on NBC. They were down down 36 percent from last year’s record number, Nielsen Media Research said.

Those are minor concerns. At the moment, what commands the attention of Commissioner David Stern is the upcoming negotiations with the players association that begin next month.

“I’m sure it’s going to be an interesting exhibition of sorts,” Stern predicted.

During the just-completed All-Star weekend in Minneapolis, Stern and Charles Grantham, the executive director of the players’ association, spent part of their time promoting their causes through the media. The battle lines were drawn long ago. The league wants to keep the salary cap and the draft; the union wants neither, but does demand a healthy slice of the billion-dollar merchandising pie.

In other words, the old arguments remain. The league prefers the status quo. The players want change. The league says eliminating the cap and the draft may invite disaster. The players say the league is financially healthy enough to do away with those formulas they say are outdated. The league says the average player salary has increased many times over in recent years. The players respond that so has the value of franchises. The league wants to restrict free agency. The players want complete free agency.

Stern and Grantham do agree on something. Both men, who have great respect for each other professionally and spend time together socially as well, say they’ll do their part to keep the negotiations free of acrimony. Grantham says that’s in the players’ association’s best interest.

“But that’s not to suggest we’re a compliance organization,” Grantham added.

Both sides have enjoyed a close working relationship. Unlike the NFL and major-league baseball, the NBA never has had a player strike or work stoppage. But in the past, that was something it couldn’t afford. When the last labor agreement was signed in 1983, the league stood on fragile financial ground. Now there are many more millions at stake and the NBA has a firm popularity base. This time, a lockout or strike is not out of the question.

Between now and even during negotiations with the union, Stern will monitor the Timberwolves’ plight. Faced with a $73 million bill for the Target Center that they can’t pay and the city won’t pay, the Wolves are plotting a move. They’re being romanced by San Diego and Nashville, Tenn., but the NBA won’t send for a U-Haul until all avenues are exhausted. The league wants the Wolves to stay in Minneapolis, where they are otherwise profitable and the fan support is strong.

The court battle between the NBA and Chicago’s WGN is ongoing. Stern is testifying against Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf, claiming superstations infringe on the league’s exclusive TV rights. Reinsdorf is fighting to keep Bulls’ games on the superstation. The legal decision could impact the league’s billion-dollar national TV contracts.

Perspective franchises in Toronto and Vancouver, British Columbia, have hurdled the gambling obstacles that threatened to delay or cancel their arrivals. They will bring a few hundred million in franchise fees to the league. But how much further will they dilute the talent pool? Critics say that, based on the dwindling number of great players, the league now is paying for expanding from 23 teams five years ago.

Owners everywhere are cringing at the stratospheric player salaries. Long-term, megabucks rookie contracts given to Anfernee Hardaway, Chris Webber and Shawn Bradley broke new ground. The Charlotte Hornets could give Larry Johnson an $84 million package because they draw nearly 24,000 fans a night. But owners in other, less-vibrant places, such as New Jersey, are being affected. Now the Nets are faced with what to do with Derrick Coleman and his grotesquely inflated salary demands. Breathlessly awaiting are free agents-to-be Danny Manning, Horace Grant and to a lesser extent, an aging yet still productive Dominique Wilkins.

Clearly, the times are a-changing for the NBA.

“There’s more at stake for everybody,” Stern said in Minneapolis.