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Whoop Whoop Whoop Peter May Column
PRO BASKETBALL
It's what they bargained for
League, players are in legal limbo
By Peter May, Globe Staff, 09/06/98
Since the NBA imposed its lockout July 1, negotiators from the league and the
players union have had exactly one bargaining meeting. It ended in disaster,
with the NBA contingent abruptly leaving.
Now the two sides are in arbitration over an issue that the league feels is,
to quote Hamilton Burger, irrelevant, incompetent, and immaterial. The union
is in litigation mode, hoping to get an arbitrator to sock it to the owners
where it hurts the most: in their portfolios.
Arbitrator John Feerick, whose split-the-baby mentality resulted in the
disastrous Latrell Sprewell decision last season, is again hearing evidence.
The issue is whether the players who have guaranteed contracts - as almost all
of them do - should get their money during a lockout. It's a novel concept,
but with Feerick, anything is possible.
However, unlike the Sprewell mess, Feerick's decision is appealable. If he
finds that the players were wrongly denied their dough, NBA consigliore Jeff
Mishkin will head to court and ask for a stay of execution, er,
implementation. That could drag things out even more. Then again, if the NBA
is to lose games, which seems unavoidable, better to do it in November and
December when no one (including benefactor NBC) is paying attention.
The NBA disputes even Feerick's jurisdiction in hearing the case. It insists
his term as arbitrator expired when the lockout began. But the union filed its
motion shortly before the lockout began, so it says Feerick's role is entirely
proper.
The NBA also feels that this dispute is not over basketball issues, but
instead concerns labor law. The league contends that labor law allows the
owners to withhold money as surely as a strike allows workers to withhold
services. The players did not get paid during the 1995 lockout. Hockey players
were not paid when they were locked out in '94.
Testimony before Feerick may conclude Tuesday or spill over to one more
session. There is time to file additional briefs, with a decision probably due
by the end of the month. Then the fun should start.
By that time, the sides may be back to where they should be: at the bargaining
table. Word has it both sides have agreed on the size of the table, the brand
of coffee to be served, and the size and color of the window dressings, and
may actually talk again as soon as this week.
A new beginning
Assuming sanity prevails, a risky assumption given the principals involved,
there is a new wrinkle to the NBA schedule this season. For the first time in
more than a decade, the season won't start on a Friday and end on a Sunday.
Instead, the games are scheduled to start on a Tuesday (Nov. 3, election day)
and end on a Wednesday (April 21). The change was made primarily to
accommodate NBC, the former Official Network of the Chicago Bulls. The network
will be able to air more games, both in the regular season and in the
playoffs. It also will have two sets of weekend games in the usually
forgettable first playoff round, which will now be a best-of-five series
spread over two weeks. The new schedule also will, in all probability,
eliminate back-to-back playoff games (a second-round problem) and similarly do
away with head-to-head conflicts between TBS and TNT in the postseason. NBA
schedule czar Matt Winick said he couldn't remember the last time the season
didn't end on a weekend, but speculated it was probably in the 1970s. The
concessions to NBC and TNT/TBS were unavoidable due to the astronomical sums
they are paying in rights fees, he suggested. The Celtics, meanwhile, don't
get the cushy start they got last year, when they played 16 of their first 25
at home (and two of the roadies were in Toronto). This time, 14 of their first
26 are at home, although among those 14 are annual titans Golden State,
Vancouver, Toronto, Denver, Sacramento, and the Clippers. (Draft picks 1-5 and
7 last June. Get your seats early!) However, they also have to take the Texas
three-step in the first week of December. The Bulls, whatever their
appearance, make their first appearance Nov. 11, while Larry Bird and the
Pacers stop by for the first time Jan. 8. One of the real schedule
jaw-droppers is a Sunday prime-timer (5:30 p.m. start) April 4 against the
Nets in the FleetCenter ... It didn't take Dino Radja long to decide that the
grass was greener where he was last year. The former Celtic re-signed with
Panathinaikos - he earlier had exercised an opt-out clause - for one year. The
deal-clincher: Radja is basically exempt from practices. ``His knees are
shot,'' agent Marc Fleisher said of his Split-raised bread winner. ``He gave
serious thought to retiring, and as it is, he'll probably play only one more
year. There was no way he could get through an 82-game [NBA] season.''
Fleisher said Radja was intrigued by the prospect of joining the Bulls or
Knicks for their respective playoff runs last year, but nothing came of it ...
Another client of Fleisher, Yugoslav Dejan Bodiroga, was the Most Valuable
Player in the recently concluded World Championships. Bodiroga, who will also
play for Panathinaikos, is the property of the Kings, who selected him in the
second round of the 1995 NBA draft. ``There were three teams that I know of
that expressed an interest to trade with the Kings for his rights,'' Fleisher
said of the versatile 6-foot-8-inch forward, who is in his mid-20s. ``I don't
think he'll go [to Sacramento]. I think he wants a bigger market.'' Fleisher
said Bodiroga could well jump to the NBA for the 1999-2000 season ... The
phone rang early one morning recently at the Ford home on the Jersey shore.
Things were going well for Chris Ford; he was still the coach of the Milwaukee
Bucks and he had just sold one of his summer homes. He liked the chances for
the team this season. But by the time he hung up with Bucks general manager
Bob Weinhauer, he was an ex-coach and was soon scrambling to get his kids into
Boston-area schools while making plans to move back here to the family manse
in Lynnfield. There's only one way to describe Ford's reaction to the firing:
utter surprise. He had no inkling it was coming. ``That's true,'' he said last
week. ``I was very surprised.'' There had been rumors all spring and up to the
lockout that he was on thin ice. ``But I thought because we were well into
August that it had all worked out,'' he said. Conspiracy buffs had long
thought eventual hiree George Karl to be in the mix, due mainly to his
friendship with Rick Majerus, who is this tight with Bucks boss Herb Kohl (who
prefers to be known as The Senator). There also was talk that Al McGuire was
pushing Kohl to hire Cincinnati's Bob Huggins. Ford will draw a salary this
year and figures he has some serious family time/satellite dish watching
ahead. ``I'll see what's out there,'' he said. ``There are some openings, but
I don't know how open they really are. But you never say never. Right now, my
immediate plans are to get settled in and wait for the [moving] truck, which
gets here Tuesday. Once we get settled, I'll see what's out there.'' If Ford,
or the NBA, stays out of action, he will get the chance to s
e his daughter, Katie, play college hoops for that renowned Division 3
juggernaut, Williams College ... Sacramento, the Clippers, and Denver all have
coaching vacancies. If the three teams pooled their available talent, they
might be as good as, oh, Cleveland. The name of Kurt Rambis is out there for
both California openings, though we're not sure if it's because Rambis can
actually coach or that his agent, Lon Rosen, is, as they say, working both
sides against the middle. Sacramento owner Jim Thomas is a certified Laker
wannabe, and that may help Rambis. However, Thomas is due to relinquish his
majority share in ownership to the Maloof family, the same one that owned the
Rockets when Houston played the Celtics in the 1981 NBA Finals.
Worst-case scenario
Mention the name Olden Polynice around the NBA, and most coaches or general
managers who've had to deal with the loopy free agent center will reach for
the extra strength Tylenol. So it wasn't without a chuckle that we saw that a
clause in a 1994 contract signed by Polynice was submitted by the union as
evidence in the guaranteed contract arbitration case.
In the contract, there is classic lockout language. ``The Kings insisted on
it,'' said Polynice's agent, Keith Glass. ``I don't even remember why. [There
was talk of a players' strike in the summer of 1995.] I was shocked, and I
highlighted it.''
The NBA says it isn't concerned; the league contends the clause dealt with
money Polynice would have to pay back from a $500,000 advance he took on the
contract.
Glass no longer represents Polynice, but he is supportive of the union and its
fight. ``In the next millennium,'' he said, ``when historians study the 1990s
in America, they will be scratching their heads over two things: Why do men
have to pay their ex-wives and why is there a salary cap?''
This story ran on page D02 of the Boston Globe on 09/06/98.
© Copyright 1998 Globe Newspaper Company.