Life Is Still Good for Stern and the League, but There Are Problems on the Horizon

In the MBA (Michael Basketball Assn.), it’s the best of times, the worst of times and, unfortunately, the last of times.

Michael Jordan is starting to say his goodbyes, adding to the case load of Commissioner David Stern, who had enough to do. Let’s see, finish up this Latrell Sprewell mess, deal with the Anthony Mason mess, the Chris Webber mess, the labor mess and, oh yes, can we get heaven to send us another transcendent superstar/cultural icon?

However long it takes, Jordan’s last hurrah promises to be memorable. Since he returned in 1995, restoring the NBA’s status as a hot property, the Chicago Bulls have won two titles, the finals have outrated the World Series for the second time in five years and the NBA has landed a $2.7-billion television deal, zooming ahead of baseball.

While ratings erode for baseball, the NHL, NCAA basketball, NCAA football and even the NFL, the NBA is still tracking upward. Last week’s Laker-Bull game, a midafternoon rout featuring Jordan and Kobe Bryant, outdrew the prime-time Pro Bowl.

However, it’s an eerie and fragile prosperity the NBA enjoys, posing a problem for Stern, who wants to fix a system that surely needs it, but is struggling to secure a mandate from his owners.

Stern wants to redo the collective bargaining agreement, even if it means locking out the players, which may mean missing the start of next season and forfeiting the NBA’s distinction of never having lost a game to a job action.

Stern, arguably the last powerful commissioner, has always enjoyed a free hand. However, some owners took one look at the new TV package--raising each of them from $9 million to $23 million annually--and decided things aren’t so bad, after all.

A bloc of teams--some owned by billionaires, some in big markets, some in medium-sized high-revenue markets, some whose owners have saved up cap room to rebuild--are against throwing down the gauntlet and putting next season at risk.

Sources say Jerry Buss, whose Lakers reportedly grossed $80 million last season; Dave Checketts, whose New York Knicks take in $1 million a game; the Boston Celtics’ Paul Gaston, the Bulls’ Jerry Reinsdorf and the Orlando Magic’s Rich DeVos are doves.

Then there are the Portland Trail Blazers’ Paul Allen and the Miami Heat’s Mickey Arison, both fabulously rich and neither particularly bottom-line conscious, and the Atlanta Hawks’ Ted Turner, whose cable stations carry NBA games. Two important swing votes, the Phoenix Suns’ Jerry Colangelo and the Cleveland Cavaliers’ Gordon Gund, have spent the last few seasons saving up cap room and maneuvering themselves into position to go shopping this summer.

Buss, Checketts, Colangelo, Arison and Gund are on the nine-member labor committee, so Stern, the former trial lawyer, had better start working on his summation.

“The big teams don’t want it to happen because of their enormous grosses,” says one general manager. “My best guess is that David Stern is looking for this. He’s looking for a fight, don’t kid yourself.”

Says another general manager: “My gut feeling is they’ll struggle to get 17-18 votes. Can they get 14-15? Yeah.”

When they vote in April, a simple majority--15 of 29 teams--would suffice. However, league officials say privately they need more like two-thirds, since unity would be all-important in a shooting war.

Even two-thirds might be light if the “nos” include so many heavy hitters like Buss, Checketts, Reinsdorf, Colangelo, Turner and the three billionaires--Allen, Arison and DeVos.

Give and Take on Both Sides

For its part, the union has reason to renegotiate--to do something for the almost 40% of its members making the minimum--an issue on which Stern is willing to move.

A source says Stern would approve a “guild” system, boosting the minimum for veterans, such as Seattle’s Jerome Kersey or Orlando’s Gerald Wilkins to something like $500,000-$750,000, as opposed to the current, same-for-everyone $272,500. The extra money wouldn’t count against the cap, giving teams flexibility to add veterans, even if they’re over.

This addresses the union’s greatest concern. For the league, it has two benefits: It costs relatively little and mollifies 40% of the players.

Of course, Stern will want a few things back: to lengthen the three-year term of apprenticeship, after which players become free agents; possibly even to reinstate restricted free agency after that term; and, most important to the owners, to put some kind of brake on the runaway salaries franchise players are now commanding.

As Stern notes, revenues are up, as are ticket prices. Profitability is down and attendance is softening.

In Sacramento, the Kings had sold out since arriving in 1985, raised prices twice in the last two seasons, failed to sell out for the first time in November--and have since seen attendance plummet 20%. Charlotte, which had posted eight of the league’s top 10 seasons, saw its eight-year sellout streak end. The Suns are still announcing sellouts in America West Arena, which has never had an officially empty seat since it opened in 1992, but some unofficial ones have been spotted lately.

Meanwhile, the leverage conveyed to post-adolescent players in the three-years-and-I’m-outta-here rule is a disaster, especially in the smaller, less glamorous markets.

Take Minnesota, where the bright, young Timberwolves have cut a swath through fans’ feelings. In the new “happy” era, they acquired blue-chip prospects Kevin Garnett and Stephon Marbury and turned the team around, only to see Garnett reject $17.5 million a year, after which his agent announced they were breaking off negotiations for good because the Timberwolves’ owner had talked about it and made Garnett look bad. Garnett subsequently directed his agent to reopen talks, accepted more than $20 million a year, then declared: “It ain’t about the loot.”

Then Marbury, a Brooklyn native, denounced Minnesota’s weather and lack of hot dog stands (“New York’s not Florida, but you can go outside in the winter. Here it’s impossible. Here you have to walk around in tunnels all the time. I do miss being able to go to Nathan’s, being able to do some of the things I did before.”)

Marbury also said his old promise to sign for less than Garnett was inoperative, since he takes most of the big shots these days, and demanded $125 million too. This suggests if he gets it, he may be willing to settle for the hot dogs he can get at the grocery store.

Question: How long is Minnesota, or America, going to sit still for this nonsense?

Sprewell, Webber, Mason, et al., get the headlines, but it’s the petty outrages that occur daily that have turned this league into a mercenaries’ version of the Tower of Babel. As Stern notes, you can’t blame players for taking what the system offers, so it’s the system they’ll have to address.

One influential owner says he’s still making up his mind, insisting it’s possible for men of good will on both sides to reach an agreement without resorting to threats and shows of force. It would be nice if they can do it, but history suggests it usually takes threats and shows of force.

Certainly, the two sides didn’t look as if they were about to fall in each others’ arms last weekend, when union president Patrick Ewing suggested players might boycott this summer’s World Games and Stern rolled his eyes at the union’s response to his new proposal for a substance abuse policy.

They have a lot of big decisions coming soon. That’s what happens when you get big. Marketing is easy. It’s success that’s hard.