HOUSTON – NBA deputy commissioner Adam Silver says even though the league and players’ union are far apart on a new labor agreement and have no talks planned before All-Star Weekend next month, there is a simple reason to believe a lockout can be avoided next summer.
Faith.
“If you look at the history, we’ve only lost regular season games once in the the 60-year plus history of this league,” Silver said during an impromptu Q and A with the media in the Rockets locker room on Friday night.
“So the fact that we don’t have a deal yet or that we don’t have any progress to report yet, to me is not an indication that we’ll necessarily have a lockout. There’s plenty of time to get a deal done. It’s not a function of time. It’s a function of movement by the parties.
“From the league standpoint, we believe we made a compelling case to our players why there needs to be reductions in salaries.”
When asked why there has been no response to the National Basketball Players Association’s counter to initial league proposal, Silver shrugged.
“Because our position hasn’t changed,” he said.
Yet Silver continues to believe that a deal will get done based on the mere fact that it almost always has before. The only work stoppage that cost regular season games occurred at the start of the 1998-99 season.
“(NBA commissioner) David Stern and (union head) Billy Hunter have a longtime relationship,” Silver said. “I believe have they have mutual respect for each other and are gonna do everything in their power to avoid missing games.
“That’s all I have to point to. Certainly there’s nothing specific I can point to today to suggest we’ve made progress towards a deal.”
Silver said that right now there is no planned meeting between the two sides during the All-Star Weekend in Los Angeles, Feb. 18-20 and suggested that any session that might be set up would be largely symbolic since Stern and Hunter both have many obligations during that time.
“I’d like to say, from a fan’s standpoint, I don’t necessarily expect them to care how money is divided between players and owners,” Silver said. “I do expect them to care about the quality of competition in this league and one of the things that we presented to the Players Association is that we believe we can do a better job distributing the money we do pay to the players to insure that all 30 teams regardless of market size are competing for a championship.
“By that, I don’t mean to say it in a coded way. It would mean shorter contracts with less guaranteed money to give teams flexibility to improve their rosters.”
Stern had previously raised the possibility of contraction of the league from its current 30 teams.
“To the extent that contraction has been discussed it’s frankly more in terms of the economics of certain markets,” said Silver. “We have a pool of players that can compete at the highest level.”
[...] It may be an impossible game to win, the battle over the white hat in collective bargaining. But notably, NBA deputy commissioner Adam Silver — the league’s so-called lead negotiator (which makes it sound like a hostage situation, which kind of fits) — unveiled his pitch to fans in an impromptu chat with reporters before Hornets-Rockets on Friday night. NBA.com’s Fran Blinebury captured the message. [...]
[...] It may be an impossible game to win, the battle over the white hat in collective bargaining. But notably, NBA deputy commissioner Adam Silver — the league’s so-called lead negotiator (which makes it sound like a hostage situation, which kind of fits) — unveiled his pitch to fans in an impromptu chat with reporters before Hornets-Rockets on Friday night. NBA.com’s Fran Blinebury captured the message. [...]
[...] Labor strategy: Gotta have faith « NBA.com | Hang Time Blog [...]
[...] season games once in the the 60-year plus history of this league,” Silver said, according to NBA.com. “So the fact that we don’t have a deal yet or that we don’t have any progress to report [...]
In a way I agree with both sides. . . . The player play a lot of games more than any other sport and have a lot of wear and tear on their bodies so they should get paid. . . but on the other end the economy is not how it use to be and all players shouldnt get paid at a high amount if they dont produce on a high level always.
they could cut cost by implementing a pay cut for being injury, players not getting full amount until they return.
Pay review on performance every one to two months.
but if the strike happens it will hurt the players more than the NBA since they are use to having a certin amount of money coming in so offten.
Yes this would hurt the players i wish they could get a POWERPULL Tug Of War Rope and put the players on one side and the franchise on the other and have a Tug Of War and see who would be on top.