By Mike Kahn
SportsLine Executive Editor
Jan. 5, 1999

For once, despite the obvious ramifications, this really isn't about money.

Yes, we are talking about the impasse between the NBA and the Players Association. If enough players are worried about their income, then they will vote to approve the final proposal from the NBA Wednesday and shun the NBPA's stance during the six-plus months of the lockout over a new collective bargaining agreement.

From

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the beginning, it was apparent we really were watching a power struggle between NBA commissioner David Stern and NBPA executive director Billy Hunter. There is no doubt Hunter was hired because of his background and strong resolve as an attorney to stand up to Stern after the problems both Simon Guordine and Charles Grantham had before him.

"He was hired to kick my (butt)," Stern said over the summer. "We all know that."

So Stern has made sure that hasn't happened. Stern has made it clear they will cancel the 1998-99 NBA season on Thursday if the players don't accept the latest proposal from owners when they vote Wednesday. What has become apparent since the 1995 agreement was signed is simply this ... the top level players got too strong through huge contracts, and the coaches and owners lost control.

What topped it off was when Latrell Sprewell's contract termination after attacking his coach P.J. Carlesimo was overturned. Stern was not going to stand for it anymore.

"My

David Stern isn't giving the players much room to negotiate. (AP)

job as commissioner is to sometimes ignore the wishes of both sides," Stern said Monday during a national teleconference. He went on from there to describe how negotiations have not moved along to where they want it to be. The players have conceded far more than the owners, giving back everything that was theirs through the agreement signed in 1995.

Still, the owners have made concessions since their original offer. Just not a lot. They will not allow the percentage of shared revenue to reach where it is now after the third year of the current agreement, and that will include an escrow of 10 percent of the salary that must be paid in return ... presumably to small-market teams. The players have agreed to a maximum salary of $15 million, and the owners want it at $12.5. There are more numbers to bore you with.

Again, the numbers aren't the point of this matter. It's all about who's running the show and there is no doubt David Stern has his league back. But in what form, we won't know until the next two days have passed.

HUNTER SAID LAST WEEK HE BELIEVED 80-85 percent of the league would stick with the 19-man negotiating committee's recommendation to vote down the latest proposal.

Nobody believes that figure. Hunter must have gotten a little nauseous when he actually saw that in print. Certainly a lot of players didn't believe it.

"He's got to be kidding," one NBA veteran said. "I just don't believe when it comes down to it, every player is going to be thinking about unity. For players like myself, this could be our last chance for a contract. To whose benefit is it to sit out any longer? It's all well and good to be thinking about the future players in this league, but we all knew the huge contracts were going to have to end some time.

"At some point in time, we all have to say, when is enough, enough? It was our fault for the top-end players getting out of hand and that's where the middle class went. We have to be honest with ourselves."

That sort of notion is what Stern is counting on. Furthermore, there's no way Hunter expects 400-plus players to show up in New York Wednesday to vote. With a snowstorm rolling full blast, it will be limited attendance and he knows he can count on the 29 player reps plus the negotiating committee to stand firm. If 100 or fewer players show up to vote, it might be voted down. But if half the body of players come to vote, no way they don't play.

"If they elect to go against our recommendation, then I have to live with that," Hunter said. "Everybody is going to get a chance to participate in a vote."

STERN HARBORS NO ILL FEELINGS FOR the players, and probably not Hunter. He does have a problem with upper crust agents David Falk, Arn Tellem and Bill Strickland, who have battled feverishly to keep the Larry Bird exception in order so top-end salaries would remain unlimited.

The same goes for chief counsel Jeffrey Kessler, who spearheaded the decertification of the players in the NFL and will undoubtedly do the same here if the season is canceled. More important, Kessler gets under the skin of both Stern and everybody else on the NBA's negotiating committee.

Stern has conceded they will go after non-union players if the season does end. It's not said with malice, only strident resignation to the future.

"Frankly, we may or may not be dealing with those players if we cancel the season," Stern said. "The implications here are much stronger than simply sitting down and striking another deal. I think the parties will start on separate courses."

THAT MEANS THE POTENTIAL OF ANOTHER league and seeing who stays and who goes. Stern's actions scream of the executive from the film Network: "I'm not going to take it anymore!"

So beginning with the vote of the players, we will see if there is a new course for professional basketball, or a caving of the majority of players to begin doing what they do best ... playing basketball for large sums of money.

"I want to give them the benefit of the doubt," Stern said. "They're earnest people. They seem serious and yet , the proposal that they delivered, which I think was probably drafted by their negotiating lawyers, did not match their mood. We sat down together and we realized that the clock was running."

The alarm is about to sound. Should they accept the owners' proposal, the salaries will be more defined, there will be far greater ownership of players by the teams and it will be taking the system back 10 years.

As union members, that's a bad thing.

As athletes with finite careers, there is little choice here.

In case there was ever any doubt, David Stern is still The Man!