NBA Lockout News: “within striking distance of a getting a deal”

October 28, 2011   Blog Smash, NBA, NBA Lockout, NBA SMASH   4 Comments
nba-lockout

Day 119 of the NBA lockout concluded with NBA owners and players calling it an early night Thursday. Both sides stated and believe that Friday will be a decisive day for big moves to end the lockout, or see it continue for a significant period of time.  The sides again said there was some minor progress on the system issues after about 7½ hours of talks. They decided to wrap it up and get some rest following a marathon 15-hour session Wednesday.

With the salary cap system now set off to the side, they will turn their attention back to the division of revenues, which derailed the negotiations last week.  Revenue splits remain the main point of concern for both sides.

In his true form, Commissioner David Stern said the talks had produced enough familiarity and trust “that will enable us to look forward to tomorrow, where we anticipate there will be some important and additional progress — or not.” Thank you for being so vague you no longer understand yourself commish!!!

Owners have insisted they’re not going beyond 50-50, which means the sides are still about $100 million apart annually, based on last season’s revenues. Players have proposed reducing their guarantee from 57 percent down to 52.5, but they’re unlikely to go much further without some concessions on the system issues.  If they don’t, Stern will have to decide whether to add more cancellations to the two weeks that have already been lost.

Even with a deal this week, a full season might be difficult. It takes roughly 30 days from agreement to games being played, so it’s uncertain if there’s still time for any basketball in November even before examining arena availability. But 82 games would be a boost for the players, meaning they wouldn’t miss the paycheck that seemed lost when the first two weeks were scrapped.

Players want a system that looks a lot like the old one, where teams have the ability to exceed the salary cap and where contracts and their raises are guaranteed. Owners are seeking changes that they believe would create more competitive balance by removing the big market teams’ ability to spend freely beyond the cap.

They are hoping a deal can be completed by early next week, with the union believing if so there would still be enough time to reschedule the canceled games. But they’ve now arrived at what might be the toughest part, because it always seemed these talks would come back to money.

 

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