The Lockout & the Raptors: Players approve CBA, Owners too! (1944)

[Apollo]

Talks to continue Thursday

Ok, this last bit to me makes Stern look a little goofy. "You have until to the end of Wednesday to agree to our terms or else." Wednesday arrives: "No deal, we'll continue talks. False alarm about the whole 'Wednesday or else' deadline."

Maybe he meant it when he said it and then the 16 teams against hardlining pressured him to back of the deadline? Maybe he doesn't want to wait for the "River Card" after decertification?

The NBA and NBPA met for 12 hours on Wednesday, beginning at 1:00 PM EST and concluding at 1:00 AM EST early on Thursday morning.

David Stern said that the two sides have agreed to stop the clock on their ultimatum offer and continue negotiations on Thursday at noon.

"Nothing was worked out today," said Stern.

Stern advised the media not to read much into the situation both for optimism or pessimism.

Source: RealGM.com

[mcHAPPY]

Ok, this last bit to me makes Stern look a little goofy. "You have until to the end of Wednesday to agree to our terms or else." Wednesday arrives: "No deal, we'll continue talks. False alarm about the whole 'Wednesday or else' deadline."

Maybe he meant it when he said it and then the 16 teams against hardlining pressured him to back of the deadline? Maybe he doesn't want to wait for the "River Card" after decertification?

Source: RealGM.com

I think the threat is real and as soon as these talks break down, the hardliners are in control.

I think the issue here is the perception they are negotiating in 'good faith' to fans.

Notice these are all "I think" statements and could most likely be wrong.

[mcHAPPY]

Marc Stein reporting on yesterday's meeting...

Source

Two things that I did not want to see, seemed to happen





If this is the way its going, then we'll be seeing the Heat and the Lakers in the finals for years to come. I'd prefer a relaxed BRI split favouring the players in favour of stronger system changes. One's hoping that this is all still very premature.

Yeah, I am a little worried myself.

One thing about the MLE for tax teams that both union and league agreed on was the MLE would be available every other year - the amount and length of the MLE was the dispute.

The sign and trade for tax payers does not appear to be too much an issue as I originally thought. There were only 5 or 6 trades done in the last CBA (6 years). The extend and trade, or Carmelo Anthony rule, appears to be the bigger issue. A team has to clear the cap space to sign the superstars to get the leverage to get the sign and trade - taxpayers would not have the cap space to create the leverage, only exemptions. The leverage is taken away by allowing the 'home' team to offer a much larger contract than the new team - for example, Dwight can get 5 years and $100M from ORL or 'only' 4 years and $75M from another team.

That is not to say any of the above will happen but there are other ways to get around the sign and trade for tax payers.

[Apollo]

I think the threat is real and as soon as these talks break down, the hardliners are in control.

I think the issue here is the perception they are negotiating in 'good faith' to fans.

Notice these are all "I think" statements and could most likely be wrong.

Good point. Maybe the Wednesday deadline was a scare tactic on Stern's part designed more to gather information than to make the deal? If that was the plan he certainly got some good intel. It caused guys like Steve Blake to take the initiative to pressure Hunter into a vote. Stern now knows there is reasonably strong factions wanting to make the deal, just not enough yet to put it over the top.

If this is the way its going, then we'll be seeing the Heat and the Lakers in the finals for years to come. I'd prefer a relaxed BRI split favouring the players in favour of stronger system changes. One's hoping that this is all still very premature.

I agree. Heck, give the PA the 53% they were asking for a while if they agree to the system. Maybe Stern has been whittling away at the PA to get them to the point where he flips it and says, "you know what? You've come down to 50% now and that's reassuring but what if we give you 53% instead and you take all of our new proposed system?" I don't think that's in the cards but a guy can dream.

[Apollo]

What to believe at this point? Nothing.

Progress was made on three system issues, source tells Y! Sports.

Source: Twitter @WojYahooNBA

Growing optimism in the agent and front-office community that a deal will get done. One person briefed on talks "incredibly optimistic."

Source: Twitter @KBergCBS

Source in room, when asked midway through negotiations if a deal could get done, said of NBA group, "Don't think they have the authority."

Source: Twitter @sam_amick

[Hugmenot]

Because there is a difference between doing what is required and doing what is right.

A well-timed comment considering even living legends such as Joe Paterno can be dismissed for failing to do what is right.

[Bendit]

I dont like those "gives" on the system. Puzzling that inspite of that they are still chewing the fat? What else is he willing to give up? Shoot.

[Apollo]

I think the problem now appears to be that the majority is more willing to give up some of the system for the money. This makes me believe them even more when they say that half the league is losing coin. If it were an act one would think they would be budging on the money but not on the system...

Maybe they're more willing to claw back the money this go around and establish the new mark. Then next go around they'll get the rest of the system. (hard cap)

[Bendit]

Some more meat on the system issues "progress"

SYSTEM ISSUES TO BE RESOLVED
1:15 p.m.: TNT’s David Aldridge checked in with some informative information from New York that should help us prepare for today’s session:
Assuming no delays in the pre-meeting caucus each sides conducts with itself, the NBA and the National Basketball Players Association should be underway in their pivotal meeting in New York.
Sources have indicated that the sides made progress Wednesday on three of the five significant system issues that separate them. Those are believed to be the escrow account that the league has implemented since 2006 where a portion of player salaries are withheld and placed in escrow in case the players’ overall share exceeds their agreed-upon percentage (the league is looking for a 10 percent escrow commitment from players in the next collective bargaining agreement), the league’s “repeater tax” proposal that would add additional financial penalties for luxury tax paying teams that do so three or more times in a five-year period, and the so-called “cliff” issue, with the union concerned that teams that are marginally and infrequently tax payers get punished financially under the league’s proposals just as badly as teams that are tax paying recidivists.
It is not known how much progress was made on those issues, though a source indicated Thursday morning that the moves were incremental rather than substantial, a view also expressed by the union’s executive director, Billy Hunter, in his post-meeting remarks early Thursday.
That would leave mid-level exception use for taxpayers and the ability of tax payers to execute sign-and-trade deals as the two significant issues that still aren’t close to being solved.
The NBA wants to limit tax paying teams to a “mini mid-level” exception that would only run two years and start at $2.5 million in the first year. The union has countered with a four-year mid-level starting at $5 million. Both sides have agreed that whatever mid-level is adopted for tax payers, it will only be available to them every other year.
The league argues that teams that go into the tax shouldn’t be able to add to their rosters by using the full mid-level, as the Lakers did with Ron Artest in 2009 and the Celtics did with Jermaine O’Neal last season. The idea is both to reduce the payrolls of tax paying teams to bring them closer to those of non-payers, which the league thinks will help competitive balance, and to get more players into the system for non-tax payers. The union believes that such restrictions will chill the market for free agents–in essence, taking the top five or six paying teams out of play–and will also affect players who don’t sign with the top teams, because the teams that bid for them will be able to sign them to smaller contracts than they would have to if the bigger payroll teams were able to pursue those players.
The NBA has similar concerns about allowing tax paying teams to execute sign-and-trade deals, where a free agent is allowed to add an additional year to his contract by signing a deal with his old team, which then immediately trades him to another team. Free agents got a seventh year if they re-signed with their old teams under the previous CBA, but only six years if they signed with another team. This was the method used, for example, by LeBron James when he went from Cleveland to Miami last summer–though the Heat was not over the tax threshold when it made the deal.
The union has pointed out that tax payers have only been involved in sign-and-trade deals five times over the past several years, making it an issue hardly likely to impact competitive balance.
***

Source

[Apollo]

The number of times tax teams who have pulled S&T's is not the point, it's the magnitude of the trades that's the point. If Dwight Howard comes out and says he's not signing with the Magic and wants to play for the Lakers then there should be something blocking that move. The Lakers already have more than enough advantages being in a big market.

[mcHAPPY]

Deal close to done?

NEW YORK -- NBA players broke off negotiations with the league Thursday night, saying there had not been enough progress to get a deal done to end the lockout.

The league offered the players a revised offer after nearly 11 hours of bargaining, but union president Derek Fisher said it doesn't address all the necessary system issues that are important to the players.

NBA commissioner David Stern said there's really nothing left to negotiate.

"There comes a time when you have to be thru negotiating, and we are," he said. "This is the best attempt by the labor relations committee and therefore the NBA to address the concerns that the players expressed coming out of their meeting of the player representatives."

The new offer was based upon the possibility of a 72-game season, starting Dec. 15.

"I would not presume to project or predict what the union would do," he said. "I can hope and my hope is the events of next week will lead us to a 72-game schedule starting on Dec. 15."

Beyond the salary cap system issues that divide the sides, union executive director Billy Hunter said there were six pages of what he called ancillary items, such as the draft age and the commissioner's disciplinary rights, that still must be addressed before a deal.

"There's not enough progress to get a deal done," Fisher said. "That's the disappointing part. We want to get back on the court."

Hunter said the key aspect of the NBA's new offer is a mid-level exception increase for tax paying teams to three years starting at $3 million per year.

Source: ESPN

[mcHAPPY]

"We understand that the revised proposal will be presented to the board of the union on Monday, or if travel is difficult, no later than Tuesday," Stern said. "I met with Billy, just as the clock had stopped on Wednesday as we negotiated through to today, it would remain stopped through his meeting with his board. Then, at that time, if we don't get a positive response the revised offer starting at 47 percent and based upon a flex cap would be our revised negotiating position."

He then struck somewhat of a conciliatory tone, thanking the union's executive staff for their efforts and attempting to paint the league's current offer as a compromise between the desired outcomes from both sides.

"We don't expect them to like every aspect of our revised proposal," Stern said of the players. "I would say that there are many teams that don't like every aspect of our revised proposal. But I did tell Billy that that proposal has the support of the chairman of the labor relations committee, Adam, me and the labor relations comittee itself... We await the response from the union."

The talks between the two sides would be suspended until after the NBPA meets next week, Stern said, because talks would not be fruitful until the players have time to consider the merits of the offer in full.

"It doesn't make any sense to keep going here [because] we have made our revised proposal and we are not planning to make another one," Stern said.

NBA deputy commissioner Adam Silver said that the 72-game schedule would be made possible by pushing the NBA playoffs back one week. He also noted that a key sticking point in the negotiations is the NBA's desire to increase competitive balance, which in turn limits player movement.

"[The players] told us they were disappointed in the room," Silver said. "We have a philosophical difference. There is a trade-off between player movement on one hand and competitive balance on the other hand. We recognize that in order for us to have the kind of competitive balance that we want, it restricts player movement to a certain degree."

Silver argued, though, that time will validate the NBA's approach.

"We believe that we will be proven right over time, that this new model, if the players were to agree to it, will create a better league. It will create one where fans in more markets will be able to hope that their teams can compete for championships. That fans can believe that a well-managed team, regardless of market size, regardless of how deep the owners' pockets are, will be in a position to compete for a championship. And that more players will be in a position to compete for rings as well."

Source: CBSSports.com

It sounds wonderful - lets hope it happens.

[mcHAPPY]

Via Twitter:

WojYahooNBA Don't have full details of revised owners' proposal, but league barely moved on most of important system issues, sources say.

Glimmer of hope.

[mcHAPPY]

Via Twitter:

WallaceNBA_ESPN Regardless where u stand, Stern/owners moves this week also designed 2 build their case 4 "good faith" negotiating if it goes to NLRB.

[mcHAPPY]

KCJHoop Apparently, the league meant close of business on Wednesday, Nov. 16.

Chris_Broussard Owners' new offer includes new $2.5 mill exception.Also, will raise minimum payroll for teams (used to b 75% of cap, will now b much higher)

WojYahooNBA As one Eastern Conference executive just texted about 72 game sked: "Instead of (the players) missing two checks, they will only miss one."

If this is not accepted next week and if we are not kicking off the season on December 15th, I really hope the players are crushed. Like really, really hope it happens.