Good News. Labor deal is 95.632% complete

[fairweatherfan]

43 players from 29 teams were at today's NBAPA union meeting.  The one team not represented?  The Celtics.

http://twitter.com/#!/WojYahooNBA

I heard it was the Bulls whose player reps (Boozer/Noah) were absent.

[Roy H.]

43 players from 29 teams were at today's NBAPA union meeting.  The one team not represented?  The Celtics.

http://twitter.com/#!/WojYahooNBA

I heard it was the Bulls whose player reps (Boozer/Noah) were absent.

I tend to trust Woj.  Could be that the Bulls didn't have their player reps their, but that they were otherwise "represented".

[LB3533]

13 owners oppose the ultimatum deal offered by Stern.

http://twitter.com/#!/ESPNSteinLine

[LB3533]

No deal....http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/7209093/nba-lockout-players-reject-david-stern-ultimatum-offer

[Roy H.]

Gotta love stuff like this:

Jeffrey Kessler, a prominent attorney for the players, accused the owners of treating his clients like “plantation workers,” a comment that drew a furious response from Stern.

Kessler said the owners’ current offer to give the players half of basketball-related income was not a “fair deal” and that the soft salary cap functioned like a hard cap.

“To present that in the context of ‘take it or leave it,’ in our view, that is not good faith,” Kessler, who also represented the NFL players in their labor dispute with the NFL, said in a telephone interview Monday night. “Instead of treating the players like partners, they’re treating them like plantation workers.”

In a phone call Tuesday, Stern blamed Kessler for the stalled talks and said he deserved to be “called to task” for the remark.

“Kessler’s agenda is always to inflame and not to make a deal,” Stern said, “even if it means injecting race and thereby insulting his own clients. . . . He has been the single most divisive force in our negotiations and it doesn’t surprise me he would rant and not talk about specifics. Kessler’s conduct is routinely despicable.”

Link

I hate lawyers who ramp up rhetoric and seemingly pursue their own agendas, and from afar, that's what this looks like.

[nickagneta]

No deal....http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/7209093/nba-lockout-players-reject-david-stern-ultimatum-offer

Little alarmist. This just says what Woj and others are reporting...that the union will give in on the 50/50 split but small concessions in the system must be made. I think the deal gets done before the end of the week. The big stumbling block has been moved aside.

Now Stern just has to rein in his owners and let them know they have to give into these small concessions because its in the best interest of the NBA.

[fairweatherfan]

43 players from 29 teams were at today's NBAPA union meeting.  The one team not represented?  The Celtics.

http://twitter.com/#!/WojYahooNBA

I heard it was the Bulls whose player reps (Boozer/Noah) were absent.

I tend to trust Woj.  Could be that the Bulls didn't have their player reps their, but that they were otherwise "represented".

Yup, I checked it and it was corrected - no Noah or Boozer but the Bulls were represented by John Lucas III, who is apparently still technically an NBA player.  That makes 2 things I learned today 

EDIT:  Apparently there is word that up to 200 players have signed decertification petition, but that card won't be played unless the current round of talks falls through.

[Chris]

Gotta love stuff like this:

Jeffrey Kessler, a prominent attorney for the players, accused the owners of treating his clients like “plantation workers,” a comment that drew a furious response from Stern.

Kessler said the owners’ current offer to give the players half of basketball-related income was not a “fair deal” and that the soft salary cap functioned like a hard cap.

“To present that in the context of ‘take it or leave it,’ in our view, that is not good faith,” Kessler, who also represented the NFL players in their labor dispute with the NFL, said in a telephone interview Monday night. “Instead of treating the players like partners, they’re treating them like plantation workers.”

In a phone call Tuesday, Stern blamed Kessler for the stalled talks and said he deserved to be “called to task” for the remark.

“Kessler’s agenda is always to inflame and not to make a deal,” Stern said, “even if it means injecting race and thereby insulting his own clients. . . . He has been the single most divisive force in our negotiations and it doesn’t surprise me he would rant and not talk about specifics. Kessler’s conduct is routinely despicable.”

Link

I hate lawyers who ramp up rhetoric and seemingly pursue their own agendas, and from afar, that's what this looks like.

Its no shock, as (I believe) Bill Simmons pointed out, the NFL deal was not struck until Kessler was out of the room.

[indeedproceed]

Not trying to start a political convo, but as anyone who has been following the current events forums can say, unions, and the whole 'big money vs the proletariat (sp?)' are very politically charged issues right now. With the big divide within the nation in terms of ideology, the union could literally not have chosen a worse time to have a public labor dispute. I've seen a lot of 'screw the NBA, nobody cares!' comments you just didn't see during the NFL negotiations. Poor timing for the union.

[The Walker Wiggle]

Ken Berger continues to do yeoman's work - from his latest:

Something else significant rings true about the Hard-Line Nine: all but one -- Milwaukee -- received public financing for construction of their arenas, according to data compiled by the Marquette National Sports Law Institute.

Five teams -- Atlanta, Charlotte, Memphis, Minnesota and Portland -- received public funding that accounted for more than 80 percent of their arena costs. The Timberwolves, one of the biggest economic drains on the league, received a perfect score in this dubious contest by receiving public funds covering 100 percent of their arena construction costs, according to the Marquette data. The Hawks, whose ownership transfer from the disastrous Atlanta Spirit LLC contingent that fell through last week, were a close second with their 91-percent publicly financed Philips Arena.

The least of the offenders are the Wizards (23 percent publicly financed arena), 76ers (11 percent) and Bucks (0 percent). Of course, when this is over and the owners get a far more favorable labor deal, brace yourselves for the continued push in Wisconsin to trick citizens into paying for an arena to replace the Bradley Center.

[The Walker Wiggle]

Also

A 50-50 deal shifts $3.3B from players to owners over 10 years compared to previous 57 percent system.

So after the players essentially accepted the league's 50-50 offer today, these are some of the issues holding up a deal. Non-issues.

To correct the record, there were only THREE sign-and-trades involving tax teams during previous six-year CBA, according to league source. Eddy Curry to Knicks, Kwame Brown and Laron Profit to Lakers, and Shawn Marion to Dallas. That's it.

There've been a grand total of TWO extend-and-trade deals that anyone can remember: Garnett to Celtics and Melo to Knicks. That's it.

[The Walker Wiggle]

I would speculate that Pierce wasn't at the meeting because he is already on board with Fisher/Hunter, but at the same time Fisher/Hunter didn't want Pierce's connection to decertification to hang over the room.

You were right.

Union chief Billy Hunter said Tuesday he's "cool" with Paul Pierce leading a decertification movement within the National Basketball Players Association and is "not at all opposed" to the Celtics star taking the lead.

"I think Paul is kind of frustrated with the process," Hunter said after a news conference in which the players said they were rejecting the league's latest take-it-or-leave-it proposal. "Paul has been at the bargaining table and he doesn’t feel that we’ve been making any kind of progress. And so he thought that maybe that’s necessary. We don’t have a lot of options and that’s the option Paul was pushing – still is pushing."

Asked in a small group of reporters if he's cool with that, Hunter said, "Of course. Listen, I’m cool with Paul and all these guys. I think it’s very important. I’m happy that Paul and the others are involved in the process. That’s always been the problem with athletes, that a lot of stuff is foisted on them and they have no input. Paul has been actively engaged, he understands, he’s been in five or six of our negotiating sessions, he talks to me, and when they had the decertification calls, he called and let me know that they were having the calls. And I said, 'Hey, I'm not at all opposed to you doing that.' ... I endorse what Paul did."

[indeedproceed]

Not to read too much into it, but Billy Hunter kinda sounds like a guy being asked if he's cool with his buddy dating his ex.

[chambers]

It doesn't matter if we don't win this year.
The Celtics organisation will make money regardless.
Wyc would want the season to begin as much as the other teams that are guaranteed to make money.
It's probably his last real 'shot' at having a great team for a few years unless we get 1 or 2 monster FA's next year.

[fairweatherfan]

Multiple sources reporting sides will meet at 1 PM EST.  Last-ditch shot before we open Pandora's Box. 

I'm hoping the league makes a few system concessions and the deal gets signed, but I've been hurt before