Stakes agreeably high, cooperation stars as collective bargaining tips off
Fewer games? Less money? Drastic changes to the NBA's sacred salary cap? Everything is on the table in early discussions between the league and its powerful players union as the two sides prepare to ramp up negotiations on a new collective bargaining agreement.
As well it should be.
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| David Stern doesn't want to damage the institution Bill Russell and Co. helped build. (Getty Images) |
Commissioner David Stern and Billy Hunter, the union's executive director, have made good on their promise during All-Star weekend to begin discussing a new CBA earlier than expected. The talks thus far haven't been substantive, Fisher said, owing to a recent knee replacement operation that has sidelined Hunter for a few weeks.
But Fisher has been struck by the cooperative tone of the discussions, and the willingness of both sides to put tough issues on the table. I'm not smart enough to figure out how to fix the economics of basketball, but it's encouraging that those who are seem hell bent on fixing it -- even if it means getting their feelings hurt and making concessions they wouldn't have dreamed of in previous rounds of talks.
"I think this will be one of the most sincere and straightforward negotiations that we've had in a long time because there's a third party that's controlling all of us that we have no control over," Fisher said, offering an intelligent spin on the old adage, It's the economy, stupid. "We'll have to talk with that in mind."
Unlike the 1998-99 lockout, during which Kenny Anderson famously and cluelessly complained that he would have to pare down his fleet of luxury cars, Fisher said the players aren't oblivious to the economic concerns that threaten their livelihood. Neither is Stern unwilling to pay heed to damage that would be done to his otherwise thriving game by another work stoppage.
"We definitely don't claim to know exactly what it's going to take to get a deal done," Fisher said. "And I don't think commissioner Stern is pretending that he knows all the answers at this point, either. ... This is bigger than just us right now."
In addition to the amount of the cap, which is expected to decrease regardless of the CBA talks because of declining revenue, the two sides are willing to discuss structural changes and possibly a reduction in the regular-season schedule from its current level of 82 games, Fisher said. Injuries that have left so many contenders without star players or forced them to rest key players for the playoffs are paramount among Fisher's concerns.
Knocking a few games off the schedule wouldn't eliminate all back-to-back situations, but it certainly would minimize the four-games-in-five-nights scenario that wears on players and often results in a damaged product on the floor. Going forward, the players' health -- and the quality of play -- would be in even more jeopardy if teams resorted to cutting training staffs in response to eroding revenues.
"Each game deserves to be the maximum of what it can be," Fisher said. "If you consistently have key players missing games due to injuries and things that can be avoided and prevented with some different things addressed, I think that's a fair point to discuss."
As with everything else, Fisher is open-minded about tweaking the cap but cognizant of how drastic changes would affect middle-of-the-road players. David Falk, the super-agent who tackles the NBA's economic system in a new book, The Bald Truth, sees it differently: The stars, Falk said, already are giving up too much to subsidize lesser players whose salaries are too high.
"You've got to stop robbing LeBron James to pay Jerome James," Falk said. "You've got to stop robbing the great players -- those are the players that fans come to see -- so that very average players can make $7 [million] or $8 million a year. It detracts from the quality of the league."
There's plenty of time to hammer this out, and I don't pretend to have the answers, either. The current CBA runs through 2010-11, with scant hope that the owners would exercise their option to extend it one year. Their deadline for doing so is Dec. 15, 2010. The only prediction I'll make is that the owners might very well notify the players well before the deadline that they're not extending.
It's a moot point, anyway. Everyone involved -- owners, GMs, players and the league office -- understands how important this is. When I spoke with Fisher before the Lakers' game in Atlanta on Sunday, he wasn't ready to divulge exactly what each side was willing to give up. But a decade ago, the answer would've been, "Nothing." This time, no answer was the right answer.
"This game's been around for a long time, and a lot of us were raised on this game and have enjoyed it for a long time," Fisher said. "It would be a shame to leave the game in a position where it could be negatively impacted for years and decades to come if we don't handle this the right way."
So far, they are.
"There are cracks," Falk said. "And before the cracks exacerbate, I think they need to be addressed for the long-term good of the game."
