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Rich Hofmann: Stern Should Set Deadline
December 15, 1998
Deadline The Season's Best Hope
Rich Hofmann - Philadelphia Inquirer
David Stern, the grand and masterful architect
of the NBA's current labor situation, has one
more move he absolutely, positively must make
if this thing is to be settled. He must set a
deadline.
He hasn't wanted to up until now. People have
asked him about a drop-dead date and he tells
them, politely, to drop dead. He was asked
last week about the perception that maybe
nobody would think the league was serious
about canceling the season until he set a
deadline, and he rejected the notion
completely.
"We don't want to lose the season, but the
season will run out and cancel itself," Stern
said. "That's been my position. So if somebody
says they don't think I want to cancel the
season, I certainly would hope that that's
true, and I plead guilty to that. That doesn't
mean that at a certain time when we look at
all the factors on an ongoing basis that the
season will cancel itself. That's just it."
Oh, OK. Meanwhile, the whole mess just
stagnates and stinks. Human nature being what
it is, neither side has made its last, best
offer yet. Only a deadline will provoke that.
The players haven't come close to recognizing
the possibility an entire season could be lost
-- with an unknown and unknowable future
beginning next year. Only a deadline will
force that realization. Commissioner?
"I just refuse to announce, prematurely, that
we're canceling the season," Stern said, two
weeks ago. "Let someone else in some other
sport do that. I'm not going to do it. I
reserve the prerogative for my 30 years in the
industry. The suggestion that we should set a
deadline of some day and then just blow the
season up is no suggestion that I'm buying
into -- never have and never will."
The problem is the alternative, this sliding
along into oblivion. Because that's what is
happening. A deadline is the only answer.
For precedent, we are left with only one
applicable situation: the 1994-95 lockout of
the NHL players by their owners. Baseball and
football labor catastrophes from the past
really don't fit into the box the NBA has
constructed here. The hockey situation does.
And how did that one settle? When commissioner
Gary Bettman finally set a deadline. It
happened in late December -- Dec. 29, to be
exact. Bettman had operated under the
assumptions that the league needed to play a
50-game season to be legitimate, that there
needed to be some kind of training period
before the games began, and that the playoffs
needed to be over by July 1. And so, he set
Jan. 16 as the deadline. He did it 2[Image]
weeks ahead of time, which gave everyone
involved an opportunity not only to recognize
the import of the thing, but also to come up
with some new proposals. The very act of
setting the deadline began the momentum toward
a settlement. It created the needed sense of
urgency.
Sports labor situations are funny that way. In
real life, in the real world of management and
labor, the strike deadline is the pressure
point. The strike deadline is the thing that
forces everyone involved to realize the
calamity ahead and the need to make their best
effort. In sports, it's different. In sports,
the strike deadline is viewed almost
universally as nothing more than the curtain
on the first act.
It's crazy, but that's where it is. The strike
deadline is viewed not as a deadline at all,
but as a signal to enter the bunker for the
long siege. Well, we are in the bunker now.
The only way to make everyone face the real
world calamity ahead is to get them out of the
bunker -- with a deadline.
Bettman got it right. Come out this week and
announce the deadline for coming to a new
agreement is, say, Jan. 6. Firm deadline; no
nonsense. The players could have their silly
exhibition games, the owners could call forth
all of their images of scorched earth and a
painful future, and we could get on with it.
Jan. 6. Period. With that, they could start
the season on Feb. 1. It could be a 48-game
season with playoffs that end around July 1.
There would be time.
Later than that?
"I don't think it makes any sense to us or to
[ NBC ] to put the Finals on into July," Stern
said. "Households using television drops so
dramatically as you approach July Fourth
weekend that I don't think that is a realistic
possibility."
OK. So that would be it. And if the two sides
managed to get close enough, there could be 24
or 36 hours of play in the deadline. There was
in the hockey deal, as it turned out.
The point is, a deadline will again inject a
crisis atmosphere. And if you find it
astounding the crisis atmosphere doesn't
already exist, well, welcome to the
never-never land of sports at the end of the
millennium. It doesn't exist. In the NBA right
now, around-the-clock bargaining refers only
to the minute hand.
Is there a risk? Sure. The risk is the season
actually might go down the drain. But what's
the alternative? It's drip-drip-dripping away
as it is, yet the players don't seem to
realize it.
So make them realize it. Set a deadline and
deal with the union. Then deal with the
consequences.
©1998 Philadelphia Newspapers Inc.