NBA Lockout Comes To A Halt
Bargaining in the NBA lockout came to a complete halt Wednesday as the two sides, after finding something new to fight about, announced that their next negotiating session had been canceled.
The announcement was made by the NBA following a series of phone calls between the sides Wednesday.
"Saturday's meeting is canceled. There are no further talks scheduled," league spokesman Chris Brienza said.
The new squabble concerns the details of the "breakthrough" made in a 9 1/2-hour negotiating session Friday, as well as comments by a union attorney earlier this week that certain rules changes the league is seeking are a "deal-killer."
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NBA deputy commissioner Russ Granik sent a letter to union director Billy Hunter, saying Saturday's talks should be called off in light of the newest fight over a previously undisclosed "backup tax" that was put on the table at the last bargaining session.
"Now we have nothing. We're back to the beginning," Granik said.
The league also informed NBC on Tuesday that the network's Christmas Day doubleheader was the latest casualty of the nearly 5-month-old lockout.
In place of the New York Knicks at the Chicago Bulls and the Los Angeles Lakers at the Phoenix Suns doubleheader, NBC will show Frank Capra's Christmas movie "It's A Wonderful Life starring Jimmy Stewart.
Unless a deal is reached by mid-December, more of NBC's schedule will be in jeopardy. The network is scheduled to begin its weekly telecasts Jan. 16 with regional coverage of three games.
The so-called "backup tax" might be charged to the highest-spending owners in the final three or four years of a six- or seven-year agreement.
The second tax, which Granik called a "breakthrough," was proposed by the players Friday. The tax would only be collected if a previously agreed upon escrow tax -- 10 to 15 percent of players' paychecks -- failed to cover any discrepancy between the targeted percentage of revenues that owners agreed to devote to salaries and the amount they actually ended up paying.
In other words, if owners exceeded a targeted salary total of $1.2 billion by $200 millionand the players paid only $150 million in escrow taxes, an extra $50 million would be collected from the highest-spending owners.
The owners said the backup tax rate should be 200 percent; the players said they agreed to 100 percent. Using the above example, it's a question of whether $50 million or $100 million would be collected.
"They wanted to charge a double penalty on the owners who went over their share of the designated percentage, and we clarified that that part of their counterproposal was unacceptable. We aren't into the punitive aspect of it," said union lawyer Jeffrey Kessler, whose called Granik on Tuesday to discuss any potential misunderstandings between the sides.
On Friday, the sides made progress on establishing a framework for a deal that would include a three-year period in which the sides would use different mechanisms to try to bring the growth of salaries under control. But if the amount of revenues devoted to salaries exceeded a certain percentage after three years (the players want the trigger percentage to be 57 or 58 percent, the owners want 52 percent), a so-called escrow tax would be withheld from players' paychecks and returned to the owners.
Other major differences remain, yet there was hope that the owners and players could work things out this weekend.
Now, that possibility looks remote.
"I don't know if we'll have a meeting, and I'll be surprised if we have one," Granik said. "The owners have said that if this is the players' position, then there's no point in having a meeting now. And we have communicated that to Billy Hunter in a letter."
Kessler, the lead outside counsel for the union, said the league was "grandstanding in the media."
"It's not going to lead to a deal, and that's very sad. Because they're playing with the lives of millions of people and thousands of fans, and they don't care.
"The players care, and we intend to be there Saturday. We hope someone shows up from their side," Kessler said.
The union also issued a statement:
"We strongly disagree with Russ' statement that the parties made no progress. The players proposed an additional method on top of what we had already proposed to address the owners' desire to obtain cost certainty. That new proposal and the entire escrow framework remain on the table. If the NBA is serious about making a deal, they should stop posturing and come to the bargaining table this Saturday with the goal of ending the lockout and saving the season."
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