NBA Union Director Draws Fire

The agents’ advisory committee to the NBA Players Assn. has accused the union’s executive director, Simon Gourdine, of hiding the details of an agreement with the league from his membership.

A Monday meeting of player representatives in Chicago to vote on the deal was postponed until Friday. A meeting in New York of the NBA’s board of governors, set for today, also has been postponed.

It isn’t known if the postponements are merely procedural or whether the deal is blowing up.

However, the agents’ committee is going for maximum impact. An agent said Monday that 32 players--about 10% of the membership--have signed statements renouncing the union as their negotiating agent. Included among those players are Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen of Chicago and Patrick Ewing of New York.

If 51% of the membership renounces the union, it will be decertified and players can sue as their NFL counterparts successfully did. The agent said the NBA players are prepared to file before the same judge, David Doty of U.S. District Court in Minneapolis.

The agents’ committee, meeting via teleconference Saturday, became furious when Gourdine, who once was the NBA’s deputy commissioner, refused to take their call or call them back.

The agents then faxed a statement to Gourdine, declaring “the players are outraged that they have been excluded from the negotiation process and that their views have not been represented.”

Union president Buck Williams and several members of the board of directors, including Charles Smith and Dikembe Mutombo, have been in negotiations, but player representatives have not been told details.

The agents say they have learned the high points of the deal from ownership sources. According to the proposal, the salary cap will go from $16 million to $23 million. Teams can still sign their own free agents at any figure, but there will be a luxury tax on contracts--going to 100% after three years--exceeding the cap and there will be no more exceptions, or “slots.” There will also be a rookie wage scale.