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Stephen Smith: Season On The Brink
October 29, 1998
Toward the Brink
NBA cancels games through Nov. 30
By Stephen A. Smith
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
NEW YORK -- With 105 players two
floors above him and eight team
owners standing by his side,
commissioner David Stern yesterday
canceled all NBA games through Nov.
The announcement brought the
total number of games that will be
missed to 194 -- with more on the
horizon, possibly the remaining
995, if a deal isn't struck within
a month.
Stern wiped the remaining 95 games of November
off this season's schedule because of the
owners' inability to reach an agreement with the
National Basketball Players Association. The
new, widely anticipated cancellations came 15
days after the league announced the loss of 99
games to open the season.
"We reluctantly concluded that it was certainly
not going to be possible to play any games in
the month of November," deputy commissioner Russ
Granik said.
"And we don't see any point in making further
announcements about our schedule until we either
make a deal or cancel the season entirely,"
Stern added.
The league refused to give a drop-dead date for
when the season would be canceled.
Immediately after the news conference, Stern
accepted an invitation from the union to meet
with the players and address their concerns. He
went upstairs to do so, accompanied by several
owners from his Labor Relations Committee.
Stern promised to listen to the players'
proposals, hear their gripes and explain the
rationale of the owners -- who thus far have
refused to accept a collective-bargaining
agreement that would give players what they
earned in Basketball Related Income (BRI) last
season -- 57 percent -- or what they covet now
-- 63 percent.
Minutes before meeting with the players, Stern
reminded everyone that the players have now lost
28 days and over $200 million in salaries. But
he did leave open a window of opportunity in the
process, terming "possible" the make up of lost
games.
Stern didn't elaborate on whether that meant
extending the season through late June or having
a more densely scheduled season that ends, as it
typically does, in April.
"I don't think our players feel any greater
pressure because they elected to cancel
November," said Billy Hunter, executive director
of the players association.
"We've attempted to put proposals on the table
we think will move us closer to getting a deal.
There's no question there's an economic impact
that our players have to feel, but it's not
one-sided.
Several owners, including Gordon Gund
(Cleveland), Abe Pollin (Washington), Jerry
Colangelo (Phoenix), Les Alexander (Houston),
and Peter Holt (San Antonio), tried to get that
message across to the players yesterday. But
after Michael Jordan asked them a question a
half hour into the meeting, the owners failed in
that regard.
Jordan, who flew into New York on his private
jet with Chicago Bulls' teammates Scottie Pippen
and Ron Harper, reportedly asked Pollin: "If
teams are doing so badly and the league is
losing money, why are the values of franchises
going up?"
Jordan offended the owners present by suggesting
that Pollin should sell his team if he couldn't
make a profit with it. According to one player
who preferred to remain anonymous, Pollin
fumbled over his own words, then nearly ignited
an uproar with his response:
"Look, you just have to trust us!"
He was then interrupted by Stern, who further
upset numerous players by not allowing Pollin,
the league's senior owner of 35 years, to
continue.
"Everybody assumes that because you're an
athlete, that you can't be sophisticated, you
can't be enlightened, you can't be
business-like, you don't have any kind of
insight," Hunter added. "And what happens is
that you can't take guys who, as well-paid and
as skilled and as competitive as our ball
players are, and expect that they're not going
to apply that same kind of acumen when it comes
to conducting business. You can't talk to them
like they're some dumb jock."
At the moment, neither side has discussed a hard
cap. And although they won't confirm it, a
skeleton of a deal is being discussed that
entails a luxury tax and the use of the Larry
Bird Exception (which allows teams to exceed the
cap to pay their own players).
Three weeks ago, the players proposed that a 50
percent tax be levied on the amount of any
player's salary that exceeds $18 million in one
season. The owners countered with a 50-to-200
percent tax getting tagged onto any contract
exceeding the league average ($2.6 million).
"We're nowhere right now," Stern added. "We
wouldn't be here today if [ the players' BRI ]
hadn't exceeded the trigger of 52 percent. This
is not an enterprise that the owners have
lightly undertaken . . .
"We're down to 142 days in the season. . . .
that means our existing format would be down to
68 games. We want a deal . . . a fair one."
Before the 20-member players committee left for
a 5 p.m. meeting with the league's labor team,
they discussed television's role --
specifically, the role of NBC and Turner
Broadcasting -- in this near four-month lockout.
Hunter pointed to the $2.64 billion deal the
networks signed with the NBA -- money guaranteed
in the event of a lockout -- and the effect it
could have on reaching a resolution.
"I looked in the business section of the paper
and saw that NBC was having some significant [
financial ] problems themselves," Hunter said.
"So I don't think that NBC-TNT will stand by and
let there not be a season."
©1998 Philadelphia Newspapers Inc.