[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Bart Hubbuch Column With Antoine Walker Comments
Bart Hubbuch's pro basketball column
Stubborn Stern won't relinquish key to
ending lockout
12/20/98
By Bart Hubbuch / The Dallas Morning News
What's stopping David Stern?
It has become the $2 billion question as
the NBA lockout drags on endlessly,
threatening the entire season with each
passing day.
Even the players admit Stern probably
could break the deadlock - now in its
173rd mind-numbing day - by declaring a
drop-dead date in the negotiations.
In other words, Stern should give the
union an ultimatum, saying a new labor
agreement absolutely, positively must be
reached by a certain day or the season
will be canceled.
It is the neutron bomb in Stern's pocket,
and the players - despite their claim of
unity - know it.
Just listen to Antoine Walker of the
Boston Celtics, who sounds as if he knows
just how paper-thin the players' claim of
togetherness really is.
"It's easy for us right now, because they
haven't come up with a due date, and the
thought process is that there's going to
be a season," Walker said. "But once David
Stern puts a final offer on the table,
that's when you'll see how much unity
we've got."
Many observers, including players other
than Walker, think the union's membership
- already slowly fracturing between the
upper and middle classes - will give in
when there is an actual date set in black
and white.
There's only one problem: Stern, at least
so far, refuses to do it.
Although frustrating to the fans who want
to see the lockout settled yesterday,
Stern's strategy - from a sheer
union-busting perspective - is shrewd.
Stern wants to continue subtly sewing
seeds of discontent among the players
(witness his letter to each of them this
week). Yet he doesn't want to be seen by
the public as the one wielding the heavy
hand - thereby possibly shifting some of
the fans' sympathy, if it even exists, to
the union.
It's the same reason the players so far
haven't issued a drop-dead date of their
own, despite pleas from several agents to
do exactly that.
So Stern remains vague with his comments,
avoiding an actual date and instead saying
the season "will collapse under the weight
of the calendar."
"David Stern is waiting for us to
negotiate against ourselves," New Jersey
Nets forward Jayson Williams said. "He's
trying to show that he's got more power
than everybody else."
How much longer Stern can avoid that
drop-dead date is a matter of debate.
Several players say such a proclamation is
both inevitable and necessary.
"The only way we're going to get a deal
done is when a gun is pointed at both our
heads," said Minnesota forward Sam
Mitchell, the Timberwolves' player rep.
Stern, it seems, holds the pistol.
Fans weren't the only ones disgusted by
the initial announcement that some
proceeds of Saturday's cable-ready
exhibition game would go to "needy" NBA
players.
Union leaders Patrick Ewing and Alonzo
Mourning didn't help matters by saying
that such a move was necessary because,
essentially, NBA players spend as much
money as they make.
Organizers of the game quickly reversed
field and said all proceeds would go to
charity, but some players feel the
negative fallout would be substantial -
thanks to Ewing and Mourning.
"We should have a gag order on some of our
players," Miami Heat guard Tim Hardaway
said. "Some people are not saying the
right things. They should be quiet."
Added Heat teammate Eric Murdock: "It [the
game] already has been a public-relations
disaster."
[Image][Image][Image]
Former Boston Celtics great Bob Cousy
started the players association before
retiring in 1963. Now 70, he claims to be
horrified by what the union has become and
where it stands in the current lockout
mess.
"I'm ashamed I ever started the players
association," Cousy said last week. "The
owners created this Frankenstein [by
agreeing to a union] and now the monster
is ready to turn around and eat its maker.
"For the first time in my life, I regret
starting the players association."
Isiah Thomas and Bob Lanier, two other
former union leaders, also have criticized
the current leadership for its hard-line
stance.
Patrick Ewing, the current NBPA president,
fired back this week, pointing out that
all of the critics now earn money from the
owners as broadcasters.
"Now that they're getting checks from the
other side, they're not going to say
anything bad about their bosses," Ewing
said.
Copyright - Dallas Morning News 1998