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Phil Jasner: Players Owners Mood Improves
October 28, 1998
Mood improves as talks go on
by Phil Jasner
Daily News Sports Writer
NEW YORK -- Keith Glass insisted he had no
inside information. Only an instinct.
However fragile, a glimmer of hope.
And this was after the NBA and the locked-out
players spent four hours negotiating on
noneconomic issues and league counsel Jeff
Mishkin said, "I can't say we made a lot of
progress."
"My overall sense is, they'll settle somehow
this week," said Glass, an agent for 17 years.
"If not, we could be in this for a long, long
time."
The lockout has been in place since July 1, with
not only a full-scale bargaining session
scheduled for today, but also a meeting of the
league's board of governors. Commissioner David
Stern and deputy commissioner Russ Granik were
scheduled to meet with reporters late this
morning.
"Both sides realize there may be an opportunity
to achieve something," Billy Hunter, the
executive director of the union, told New York
radio station WFAN. "If not, the next window
might not be open for another month."
Personal conduct clauses, player discipline and
marijuana prohibition were among the noneconomic
topics discussed yesterday.
In a bargaining session that lasted nearly nine
hours Monday, the sides began discussing hybrid
systems to be implemented in a new collective
bargaining agreement. The concept of a luxury
tax presumably remains on the table.
"They've been talking since last Saturday, so
it's not as if they're talking about per diem
for the players," Glass said. "Obviously,
they're talking about a system that comes
somewhere between the positions of the two
sides.
"Plus, Billy has had a mandate not to accept a
hard salary cap. I believe if he had walked in
to the meeting last Saturday and heard 'hard
cap,' he'd have gone home. I believe somebody
has moved."
With Stern and Granik attending board of
governors committee meetings, Mishkin and vice
president of basketball development Steve Mills
headed a five-man group from the league in
yesterday's discussions. The union had a
contingent of 20, including 76ers player rep
Theo Ratliff.
"The NBA has taken a position and dug in,"
Hunter said. "They've been of a mindset all
along that the players would cave. We put that
one to bed. That's not going to happen."
Orlando Magic center Danny Schayes said that, in
the systems being discussed, the owners would
have a good idea of the range of their costs
rather than the absolute cost certainty they
were seeking.
"It seems the league has started talking in
terms other than 'My way or the highway,' "
agent Bill Pollak said. "All labor negotiations
get to this point, where both sides are talking
about 'where we can get to.' I would think by
Friday, we'll have a good idea whether there is
cause for optimism or if this is just a blip on
the screen."
Schayes said Monday night a settlement was not
imminent. Yesterday, he said: "The mood is the
most right it's ever been to get a deal done."
Since Stern and Granik have said the league
would need three to four weeks to restart once a
settlement is reached, it would seem certain
that at least another two weeks of the season
will be canceled. The first two weeks are
already gone, at a cost of about $100 million in
players' salaries.
Indications have been that the league would not
agree to play less than a 50-game schedule.
Hunter said last Thursday he would attempt to
bring the entire player population of about 400
to New York today, but it remains unclear
whether that will happen. More than 240 attended
Thursday's union meeting in Las Vegas.
The union initially suggested a luxury tax on
any contract worth more than $18 million a year;
the owners countered with a tax on Larry Bird
exception contracts worth more than the league
average, which was about $2.6 million last
season.
The Bird exception has allowed a team to re-sign
its free agents at any price regardless of the
team's status within the salary cap.
The longer the dispute lasts, the greater chance
the All-Star Game -- scheduled for Feb. 14 at
the First Union Center -- could be lost. The
city has not hosted an All-Star Game since 1976.
Sixers chairman Ed Snider and president Pat
Croce were expected to participate in the
owners' meetings.
The owners want to impose a ceiling on what a
team can spend on salaries, plus a ceiling on
the percentage of that payroll that can go to
any one player. The union is fearful such an
agreement would eliminate the middle class of
players and eventually eliminate guaranteed
contracts.
The owners have proposed giving the players a
phased-in 48 percent of revenue, and have
guaranteed the players $1 billion plus at least
5 percent raises in each year of the deal. The
players received more than 57 percent of revenue
last season.
"We know we're going to get a deal, the question
is when," Hunter said.
As they say: Who didn't know that?
SIX SHOTS
Sports Business Journal reports that, because of
an unrelated business venture, Portland Trail
Blazers owner Paul Allen will own one-half of 1
percent of the Sixers. How? Allen owns 7 percent
of Microsoft, which paid $1 billion for an 11
percent ownership in Comcast Corp., the parent
company of the Sixers, Flyers, Phantoms, the
First Union Center and the First Union Spectrum.
Comcast owns roughly two-thirds of the sports
complex. The NBA is said to have no problem with
Allen's multiple ownerships in teams, because he
will receive no active benefit from the Sixers
and have no influence in team decisions . . .
The days of assistant coaches or scouts watching
informal player workouts during the lockout are
over. The league issued a directive limiting
team personnel to scouting only organized
leagues, such as the Continental Basketball
Association or European leagues.
©1998 Philadelphia Newspapers Inc.