Nando: Agents Preventing An Agreement

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

Stern says agents preventing an NBA agreement

Copyright © 1998 Nando Media
Copyright © 1998 The Associated Press

*For complete sports news, visit The Nando SportServer.

NEW YORK (November 5, 1998 01:38 a.m. EST http://www.nandotimes.com) --
With the NBA season slowly disappearing, collective bargaining talks went
nowhere quickly Wednesday.

The opposing sides in the labor dispute held their shortest bargaining
session since the lockout began, meeting for less than two hours as
commissioner David Stern seemed to be moving to a divide-and-conquer
strategy.

"I believe the people we met with today would like to make a deal," Stern
said of union director Billy Hunter, president Patrick Ewing and their
attorneys.

"Whether they'll be allowed to or not is going to be another issue," Stern
said, naming agents David Falk and Arn Tellem as the main forces trying to
scuttle a settlement that would benefit low- and middle-income players at
the expense of superstars.

The pointed comments by Stern represented one of his strongest offensives
to date in the increasingly contentious dispute that has caused the league
to cancel games for the first time in its history.

Another 11 games were supposed to have been played Wednesday, and with each
passing day the likelihood increases that the season will not start until
late December or early January, if at all.

"We estimate that we will pay out over a billion dollars (in player)
salaries. And the representatives that sat in the room with us on behalf of
those 400 players seem intent to have that billion dollars, along with the
sand in the hourglass, just drip away," Stern said.

"My focus is trying to make the deal, not trying to cancel the season. But
we're just worlds apart, and NBA players are losing an average of $14
million per game," Stern said.