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Peter May On The Confused Players Confusing Vote
[The Boston Globe Online][Boston.com]
[Boston Globe Online / Sports]
Voters register confusion
Little is clear about balloting for NBA today
By Peter May, Globe Staff, 01/06/99
NEW YORK - Some NBA players arrived here yesterday amid the
Rubiconesque scenario that has enveloped their league, their bosses,
their colleagues, their fans, and their livelihood. Dee Brown was one of
them. He forked over $1,200 for a flight from Orlando to attend today's
union vote as a player representative for the Toronto Raptors.
It's unclear how many others joined Brown; the union said it was expecting
as many as 300 players, but that might be a stretch. Whoever does show up
today will vote not on the owners' latest proposal per se, but, as
commissioner David Stern put it last night, ''to give a rousing vote of
endorsement'' to the union and its executive committee.
The 19-member committee met yesterday and reiterated its position of a week
ago - namely, that the owners' proposal to end the lockout is too punitive
and should be rejected. If the players don't make any concessions - and they
are disinclined to do so - the NBA owners will convene tomorrow morning and
vote to end the season that never was. Stern last night held out hope for an
11th-hour settlement but also said the owners' vote would be final and firm.
It also will be overwhelming, most likely 27-2, the same tally from last
March, when this mess began. In that vote, which resulted in the reopening
of the last Collective Bargaining Agreement, Celtics owner Paul Gaston and
Portland's Paul Allen (now wooing Mike Holmgren for one of his other toys,
the Seattle Seahawks) cast the dissenting votes.
Attendance at today's player meeting, scheduled for 1 p.m., likely will fall
well short of the 400-plus that union executive director Billy Hunter wanted
to see. There was confusion all day as to the time and place, prompting the
NBA to suggest that the union wanted only favorable voices at the gathering.
Players unable to get information from the union were forced to call the NBA
- and many did, the league said.
In addition, the vote will be to endorse the negotiating committee's stance,
not, as the league had hoped, a vote on the owners' proposal. Stern called
the meeting ''a pep rally'' and repeated that the owners were serious about
shutting down the season.
League attorney Jeffrey Mishkin said the union rally ''sounds to us a lot
more like a bargaining tactic than union democracy.''
Added agent Steve Kauffman before boarding a plane for New York, ''I'm
totally confused.'' He said one-third of his 16 clients would attend.
Ron Mercer of the Celtics was uncertain late into the day whether he would
be present at today's meeting. He said he had to check first with his agent.
''It would be good to get together with the players and decide what we're
going to do,'' Mercer said. ''If I do go, I'll be looking to get educated.
I've seen the proposals but I don't understand everything. I want to know
more.''
Asked if he was supportive of the union, Mercer said, ''I want to stand
behind it. But at the same time, I want to play. I just love the game. It
might be different for other guys, but me, I'm ready to play and I want to
play.''
Members of the Indiana Pacers planned to attend but wondered why they had to
spend the airfare to watch the season go up in smoke. One report yesterday
had as many as 150 players calling for a secret vote, while another had the
entire Utah Jazz roster ready to accept the owners' proposal.
Union spokesman Dan Wasserman said the association was not aware of the 150
players asking for a secret vote. He said the vote will be a ''public
ballot,'' which basically means it will be a revivalesque ratification of
the union's position.
''We believe that there is more accountability with an open vote,''
Wasserman said. The vote will not be binding.
The meeting could prove to be a logistical nightmare in that it is scheduled
for the union's outside law firm. Hunter, who was still calling players
yesterday, had been resistant to putting the owners' offer up for a vote
among the rank-and-file until Monday.
The NBA, however, was taking nothing for granted. In a telex to all teams,
it urged general managers or coaches to call players and remind them what is
at stake and to encourage them to vote. Many players expressed more
disappointment at the late notice and expensive airfare than at the owners'
demand for cost certainty.
This story ran on page F03 of the Boston Globe on 01/06/99.
© Copyright 1998 Globe Newspaper Company.