Mitch Lawrence: Players Reject Owners Ultimatum

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

By MITCH LAWRENCE
NY Daily News
11/26/98

"Talks Off, Players Reject 'Ultimatum' New York Daily News Online 
'Ultimatum'

You can start crossing NBA games off your 1999 calendar. In fact, 
it's looking more and morelike you can cross off the entire season.
NBA owners and players now can't even agree to get back to the bargaining table in an 
effort to settle the 149-day-old lockout. When Saturday's full-scale negotiating session 
was canceled by the league yesterday, that guaranteed that January games will start being
wiped out in another four days. A new deal had to be in place by Monday to keep the
lockout from knocking out dates in 1999, but that has no chance of happening.

Not with negotiations postponed indefinitely.
For the first time since the two sides started meeting last March, owners now are
demanding that players accept three main facets of a five-point proposal before they   
return to the table. The three items are the so-called timing rules that would limit free
agency, acceptance of a 52% figure for salaries, and agreeing to the owners' figures in a
tax-escrow system.

Players are opposed to the way those demands are written but are willing to negotiate
on the last two. The players say timing rules are unacceptable in any form.
Union chief Billy Hunter said yesterday in a conference call that his side is not going 
to accept the owners' ultimatum.

"As far as we're concerned, all those issues are open to discussion," he   
said.  "Our position is that we will not agree to anything before any formal meeting.  
That's ludicrous. The players want to meet and we were prepared to have our guys stay here  
(New York City) through the weekend. But we will not negotiate with a gun to our heads and        
we're not going to accept a bad deal after being locked out for almost six months."        
By refusing to come to the table unless their stars give in beforehand, the owners
continue to tighten the clamps on the players. Next Wednesday, the players will lose their 
fourth paychecks (due Dec. 30) since the owners put padlocks on their arenas. But if
owners are doing this to break the players' spirit, the move was having the opposite
effect.

"Now you have a lot of ticked-off players sitting out because we want to come to 
New York and continue to negotiate in good faith," said Danny Schayes, a member of        
the negotiating committee.  "If the owners think that we're caving in and we're going
to accept these preconditions before we get back to the table, that's the farthest thing 
from the truth, trust me."        

Owners agreed with the union that there was some movement Friday, but totally changed
their assessment after hearing that the numbers to be used in the escrow plan were still
to be negotiated. Owners left the meeting Friday assuming the union had agreed to their
numbers, while the union said it had merely agreed to the mechanism.
Last night, NBA chief legal officer Jeffrey Mishkin took issue with Hunter's 
statements.  "The union leadership continues to make a mockery of the collective      
bargaining process at a tragic economic cost to its members,"  Mishkin said.
             
Original Publication Date: 11/26/1998