David Falk Does Not Want A Season

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                                    [Los Angeles Times]         [SPORTS]

                            


                                             Thursday, December 31, 1998

                                          NEWSWIRE
                              Agent Says Falk Wants No NBA Season
                                       By MARK HEISLER


                         [T]wo days after NBA Commissioner David Stern
                            charged the players' union has been seized
                        by a "runaway negotiating committee" which is
                        guided by agents who are bent on scuttling a
                        deal, he got an unlikely witness.
                             Steve Kauffman, an agent based in Malibu,
                        said David Falk--the man Stern was alluding
                        to--recently told him he was in favor of
                        scuttling the season.
                             "Falk and I talked about five-six days
                        ago," Kauffman told The Times. "He said, 'At
                        this point, I don't want a season.'
                             "If he's saying things like that because he
                        wants David Stern to hear them, I can understand
                        that. But if he says it to me, I feel I have to
                        take it at face value. He represents four
                        players on the negotiating committee and that
                        bothers me."
                             Other sources have said recently that Falk,
                        Santa Monica-based agent Arn Tellem and counsel
                        Jeff Kessler, the union's leading hawks, have
                        been talking about calling off the season and
                        founding a new league.
                             Falk's attitude is especially relevant
                        because the negotiating committee is dominated
                        by four of his clients--union president Patrick
                        Ewing, Alonzo Mourning, Dikembe Mutombo and
                        Juwan Howard. Sources say union director
                        director Billy Hunter is ready to deal, giving
                        up caps on stars' salaries for exemptions that
                        would restore the players' middle class, but
                        Kessler and the Falk players have been pushing
                        their hard line.

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                        Reserved