Tentative
NBA deal reached
Associated
Press
NEW YORK
-- NBA owners and players reached a tentative agreement
early Saturday to end the 149-day lockout and hope to begin
the delayed season on Christmas Day.
Neither side provided many specifics but said the only
words players and fans wanted to hear.
"We want to play basketball," NBA commissioner David Stern
said.
TrueHoop:
Deal done
The
NBA season will happen after all, thanks to a handshake
deal struck in New York between David Stern's NBA and what
remains of Billy Hunter's players association, writes
TrueHoop's Henry Abbott. Blog
After a secret meeting earlier this week, the sides met for
more than 15 hours Friday, working to try to save the
season. This handshake deal, however, still must be
ratified by both owners and players.
Stern said it was "subject to a variety of approvals and
very complex machinations, but we're optimistic that will
all come to pass and that the NBA season will begin Dec.
25."
Barring a change in scheduling, the 2011-12 season will
open with the Boston Celtics at New York Knicks,
followed by Miami at Dallas in an NBA finals rematch
before MVP Derrick Rose and
Chicago close the tripleheader against Kobe Bryant and
the Lakers.
The league plans a 66-game season and aims to open training
camps Dec. 9. Stern has said it would take about 30 days
from an agreement to playing the first game.
"All I feel right now is 'finally,'" Dwyane Wade told
The Associated Press.
Just 12 days after talks broke down and Stern declared the
NBA could be headed to a "nuclear winter," he sat next to
union executive director Billy Hunter to announce the deal.
"We thought it was in both of our interest to try to reach
a resolution and save the game and to be able to provide
the mind of superb entertainment the NBA historically has
provided," Hunter said.
[+] Enlarge
Patrick
McDermott/Getty ImagesMaurice
Evans, Derek Fisher, Billy Hunter, David Stern, Adam Silver
and Peter Holt annouce a tentative labor agreement to end
the 149-day lockout.
A
majority on each side is needed to approve the agreement.
The NBA needs votes from 15 of 29 owners. (The league owns
the New Orleans Hornets.)
Stern said the labor committee plans to discuss the
agreement later Saturday and expects them to endorse it
and recommend to the full board.
The union needs a simple majority of its 430-plus members.
That process is a bit more complicated after the players
dissolved the union Nov. 14. Now, they must drop their
antitrust lawsuit in Minnesota and reform the union before
voting on the deal.
Because the union disbanded, a new collective bargaining
agreement can only be completed once the union has
reformed. Drug testing and other issues still must be
negotiated between the league and the players.
"We're very pleased we've come this far," Stern said.
"There's still a lot of work to be done."
The settlement first was reported by CBSSports.com.
Participating in the talks for the league were Stern,
deputy commissioner Adam Silver, Spurs owner Peter Holt,
the chairman of the labor relations committee, and
attorneys Rick Buchanan and Dan Rube. The players were
represented by executive director Billy Hunter,
president Derek Fisher,
vice president Maurice Evans,
attorney Ron Klempner and economist Kevin Murphy.
NBA
Lockout
The
NBA lockout began on July 1, but a tentative agreement
has been reached to save the season. ESPN.com Topics
keeps you up to date with all of the latest on the
NBA's labor situation. Topics Page »
Owners
locked out the players July 1 and the sides spent most of
the summer and fall battling over the division of revenues
and other changes owners wanted in a new collective
bargaining agreement. They said they lost hundreds of
millions of dollars in each year of the former deal,
ratified in 2005, and they wanted a system where the
big-market teams wouldn't have the ability to outspend
their smaller counterparts.
Players fought against those changes, not wanting to see
any teams taken out of the market when they became free
agents.
"This was not an easy agreement for anyone. The owners came
in having suffered substantial losses and feeling the
system wasn't working fairly across all teams," Silver
said. "I certainly know the players had strong views about
expectations in terms of what they should be getting from
the system. It required a lot of compromise from both
parties' part, and I think that's what we saw today."
But it was never easy. The day required multiple calls with
the owners' labor relations committee, all the while
knowing another breakdown in talks would mean not only the
loss of the Christmas schedule but also throw the entire
season in jeopardy.
"We resolved, despite some even bumps this evening, that
the greater good required us to knock ourselves out and
come to this tentative understanding," Stern said.
He denied the litigation was a factor in accelerating a
deal, but things happened relatively quickly after the
players filed a suit that could have won them some $6
billion in damages if the court ruled the lockout was
illegal.
"For us the litigation is something that just has to be
dealt with," Stern said. "It was not the reason for the
settlement. The reason for the settlement was we've got
fans, we've got players who would like to play and we've
got others who are dependent on us. And it's always been
our goal to reach a deal that was fair to both sides and
get us playing as soon as possible, but that took a little
time.
And led to the second shortened season in NBA history,
joining the 1998-99 lockout that reduced the schedule to 50
games. This time the league will miss 16 games off the
normal schedule.
Copyright
2011 by The Associated Press
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