London Free Press: Give NBA Players A Vote

[Way Of The Ray <wayray@ix.netcom.com>]

> Subject: London Free Press: Give NBA Players A Vote
> Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1998 08:08:59 -0500
> From: Way Of The Ray <wayray@ix.netcom.com>
> CC: celtics@igc.com
> 
> 
> 
> Wednesday, December 30, 1998
> 
> Give NBA players a vote on 'final offer'
> 
>                    By Craig Daniels, Sun Media Newspapers
>   The NBA lockout has entered its final phase. It is no longer about
> issues, or fairness, or even who should make what money.
> 
> It is about who carries the biggest stick. It is about who has the power to
> do what to whom.
> 
> The stick -- far more resembling one of dynamite than a baseball bat -- is
> in the hands of the owners.
> 
> The reality is it has been there since the lockout began.
> 
> Regardless, what lies ahead is dreadfully simple. The players must force
> their leadership to sanction an open vote, and then vote to accept the
> owners' "last offer," or on Jan. 7 the owners will lean on the plunger and
> cancel the season, in effect destroying the game as you and they now know
> it.
> 
> What the players and their agents and their union leadership have to get
> past, before it is too late to do so, is the notion there is any other
> practical alternative, that there is a moral high ground that somehow will
> vindicate their sense of anger and betrayal. The current circumstances
> aren't likely to change.
> 
> During a conference call yesterday, arranged by the union to squash talk of
> an open vote, three moderate player agents voiced what amounted to
> frustration at the way they perceive the league to have behaved and
> negotiated. The words "bad faith" and "unfair" and "agenda" and "scripted
> negotiations," all in reference to the league, were heard several times.
> 
> And then Boston Herald writer Steve Bulpett cut through to the guts of the
> matter.
> 
> "Guys," Bulpett said, "there is right, there is wrong, and then there is
> clout."
> 
> His point was that the league holds all the cards, and therefore it doesn't
> matter whether the league is being fair, or even is interested in being
> fair (although it certainly will claim that it is and always has been).
> 
> The bottom line is the union leadership has rejected the league's "final
> offer," and the league will end the season unless the union, in the next
> eight days, can take steps to convince it to do otherwise.
> 
> Let's be clear about what cancelling the season means. There will be
> decertification. There will be legal challenges that will take years to
> resolve. There will be a rival league of some kind. Current franchise
> values will crumble.
> 
> Many players will be without jobs, or will have to accept jobs that pay a
> fraction of what they could earn if they accepted the proposal now
> available.
> 
> The union claims outrage at what the league has offered during
> negotiations, yet from the outset the owners stated they wanted to back
> away from, not sweeten, the rules that governed the past season.
> 
> It doesn't matter if this is right. The owners are doing so because they
> want to, and because they can.
> 
> Most of the owners have other businesses, and they apparently are prepared
> to get out of the basketball business and run their other endeavours if the
> season collapses.
> 
> Now, none of it makes any sense from either side insofar as billions of
> dollars of damage will result when a percentage point or two -- $20 million
> or so -- is all that reportedly stands in the way of a deal.
> 
> The difference is the owners have other things to go to. Not playing the
> season will not break any of them. And as NBA commissioner David Stern said
> the other day, the league will continue in some shape or form.
> 
> "We may not have the same players," Stern said. "We may not have the same
> ticket prices. We may not have the same TV deal. But the NBA will
> continue."
> 
> For the players, on the other hand, this is all most of them have. Which
> brings us back to where we started: The mallet resides with the owners.
> 
> If it helps the players somehow to swallow something they don't like, then
> the thing they must do is focus on what they do have rather than what they
> don't.
> 
> And what they have is a standard of living that is the envy of professional
> sport in North America.
> 
> The union leadership was elected to negotiate a collective agreement, not
> end the season and destroy livelihoods. It should let the players decide
> their fate directly.
> 
> There is much to gain by signing. Much more to lose by not. And the point
> is not whether that is fair. The point is that is the way it is.
> 
>   ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Copyright © 1998 The London Free Press a division of Sun Media Corporation.
>   ------------------------------------------------------------------------
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