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Peter May: Zero Progress - Sides Miles Apart
[The Boston Globe Online][Boston.com]
[Boston Globe Online / Sports]
NBA talks get nowhere
Players, management meet, but no progress is evident
By Peter May, Globe Staff, 10/29/98
[Image]EW YORK - On the sidewalk outside the Sheraton Towers and Hotel, they
stood with their signs and their donation boxes. They rang bells. They
solicited passersby. They called themselves the Fans Union.
Their mission: Help the needy. The needy? The NBA players.
There was no avoiding the irony. Inside that hotel, around 85 NBA players -
including the supernova himself, Michael Jordan, and a few score more
millionaires - were having their first clear-the-air discussion with owners
and NBA executives since the league-imposed lockout started taking games from
the schedule and money from their pockets.
The 90-minute session was animated and heated at times. Jordan asked the first
question - he wanted to know why franchise fees keep rising if the owners are
suffering - and then had a prickly conversation with Washington owner Abe
Pollin. (We can see it now: ''Jordan Scores 65 In Win Over Wizards.'')
When the meeting concluded, the players did a collective shrug and reaffirmed
their solidarity.
''I didn't see it as any kind of give-and-take,'' said Armon Gilliam. ''We
offered a couple concessions. They stayed rigid. They're anticipating that
we'll cave in.''
Well, the NBA did make some concessions. When pressed by Steve Kerr about some
of the more onerous clauses in their dreaded Sept. 24 proposal, deputy
commissioner Russ Granik quickly said those were now off the table. But the
owners also offered up a new salary structure, which would mean that Antoine
Walker would be eligible to make ''only'' $7.8 million after his original
Celtics contract expires.
The sides resumed negotiations at 5 p.m. and continued past midnight at a
Manhattan law office, according to the Associated Press.
As for the Celtics, they have now lost 13 games, including three sure wins at
the FleetCenter: Vancouver, Golden State, and Toronto. If the season began
Dec. 1, another unlikely scenario, they would open with a three-game trip in
Texas.
Yesterday's events began with the NBA Board of Governors authorizing the
cancellation of the final two weeks of November. Commissioner David Stern,
Granik, and six grim-faced governors then met reporters to deliver the
expected news. Granik said there would be no more such announcements, that one
could assume that for every week without a deal, another week of games goes by
the board. Stern said the players lose $100 million every time they miss their
paychecks, most of which come twice a month.
That did not seem to faze the union. Executive director Billy Hunter said, ''I
don't think our players feel any greater pressure with the cancellation of
games in November.'' But he also said he thought the union's strength, along
with pressure from the NBA's two broadcast benefactors, would help the league
to soften its stance.
''I don't think NBC and TNT will stand by and not have a season,'' Hunter
said.
Jordan, who spoke to reporters before the meeting, said he thought the owners
should look in the mirror if their costs are rising.
''If the owners are paying that kind of money, evidently, they feel they can
[afford] it,'' he said. ''If that's jeopardizing their profit margin, that's
the choice they're making. We're not doing it. Yet we're paying the price
because their profit margin wasn't what it once was. It wasn't because we paid
ourselves. They paid the athlete what they thought he was worth.''
Union attorney Jeffrey Kessler said there had been a ''conceptual agreement''
on how the impasse might be settled. But he added that the sides are miles
apart on how to close the deal, a sentiment echoed by former Celtic Rick Fox.
''It could be the Grand Canyon,'' he said, ''but there's $2 billion there to
cushion the fall.''
He was referring to the total revenue intake by the league.
The league, which also canceled a Dec. 12 game in Mexico City between the
Clippers and Spurs, is fixated on bringing salaries in line with revenues. The
former is outpacing the latter at an alarming rate, according to the league.
The NBA is proposing various vehicles to slow salary growth, none of which,
unsurprisingly, is appealing to the players.
''Right now we're driving a car,'' said union president Patrick Ewing. ''They
want us to go back to horse and buggy.''
Stern hinted that perhaps some of the lost games might be rescheduled, saying
there were ways to be creative and imaginative in fashioning a new deal. That
came in response to a question concerning a drop-dead date for flushing the
entire season down the drain. He didn't elaborate.
This story ran on page E01 of the Boston Globe on 10/29/98.
© Copyright 1998 Globe Newspaper Company.