NBA players won't get paid
10/20/98
Steve Aschburner / Star
Tribune
No play, no pay and no end
in sight to the NBA
lockout.
The players lost a
potentially huge bargaining
chip Monday when an
arbitrator ruled that the
league's owners do not have
to honor guaranteed
contracts during the
lockout. The decision by
John Feerick means the 29
teams are not obligated to
pay nearly $800 million in
salaries to the 226 players
already signed for the
1998-99 season.
Had the ruling gone in the
players' favor, the payroll
costs might have given the
owners a greater incentive
to compromise. Certainly,
it would have made it
easier for players
receiving paychecks to
maintain their solidarity.
(Another 200 players are
free agents or otherwise
unsigned, and would not
have been paid regardless.)
Now all players will start
losing money in November,
based on the games already,
or soon to be, canceled.
The first two weeks of the
regular season were erased
last week, and NBA
commissioner David Stern
said Monday that more
cancellations are
"inevitable." An
announcement, perhaps
wiping out another two
weeks, is likely next week.
"We don't take great
pleasure in the [ruling],
because although it's
better than losing, it
doesn't move us closer to
an agreement with our
players," Stern said.
Stern said the NBA owners
knew all along their right
to impose a lockout and
withhold pay was a tenet of
labor law. The union had
argued the absence of
lockout language in the
standard player contracts
meant that teams were
liable for guaranteed
salaries. Feerick, dean of
the Fordham Law School, had
ruled favorably for the
union in the controversial
Latrell Sprewell case.
"I kind of expected it,"
union director Billy Hunter
said. "I was hoping Dean
Feerick would be inclined
to see things our way, but
we knew it would be a giant
leap for him to take,
especially since he is a
labor lawyer by
profession."
Timberwolves player
representative Sam Mitchell
said: "My thing with the
ruling was, I thought it
was a 50-50 chance. I'm not
a gambler, but 50-50 odds
are not good. Now it's out
of the way and we still
need to get a deal done."
Mitchell said a bright side
to Feerick's decision is
the players' stance won't
be split among the paid and
the unpaid.
Although the ruling would
seem to give the owners
leverage, Stern noted with
chagrin that no bargaining
sessions are scheduled.
Instead, the NBA players
association will meet
Thursday in Las Vegas.
"This should have been a
signal to both sides to
return to the table today,"
Stern said. "Rather, the
players are being told by
their union [that] another
week of lost salaries is
going to occur even before
the parties get together."
Stern was critical of
Hunter and players
association president
Patrick Ewing for failing
to communicate details of
the league's offers to
their members and to grasp
the basics of the owners'
predicament. He issued a
letter Monday to Hunter,
summarizing management's
concerns for the players
and their agents.
Both sides made proposals
last week that featured a
tax system on hefty
contracts to slow salary
growth, but they were far
apart on most provisions.
Setting the percentage of
NBA revenue devoted to
player compensation, Stern
said, is the first logical
step in moving toward an
agreement. The lockout,
after all, was imposed on
July 1 because the players'
share exceeded 51.8
percent, in fact topping 57
percent of the league's
$1.7 billion revenue last
season.
But the union has been
unwilling to accept a fixed
percentage.
"Any agreement that we talk
about [with that] gets
immediately characterized
as a hard cap," Stern said.
Several of the owners'
proposals would limit
exceptions to the NBA
salary cap, firming up a
team's maximum payroll. The
union counters that no
ceiling should be placed on
a player's value.
Timberwolves owner Glen
Taylor's decision to sign
forward Kevin Garnett to a
six-year, $126 million
contract often is cited by
both sides as a breaking
point.
Stern said Monday the
owners will guarantee a 20
percent raise in player
compensation during the
next four years. Increasing
minimum salaries,
especially for veterans,
also is acceptable but has
to come from the players'
overall share.
"Where it's got to come
from are from contracts at
the very high end," he
said. "I don't know how to
say that more directly and
fairly."
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