By Mike Kahn
CBS SportsLine Executive Editor
Dec. 1, 1998

The good news is the full NBA negotiating teams will meet Thursday morning.

Some people may think it isn't a good thing that everything now will start from scratch. All the movement of shared income percentages has vanished and the bruised egos from the cancellation of last weekend's meetings will have to mend.

Commissioner

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David Stern, deputy Russ Granik, their lead counsels and some owners will meet union executive director Billy Hunter, president Patrick Ewing, other players and their lead counsels.

"At least," one NBA source said, "they're meeting. I feel frozen in time on Sept. 1. I can't even believe it's December and these two groups haven't come close to a deal. They're both at fault. I realize it's December only because I had a big turkey dinner last Thursday, but I can't believe what this is doing to basketball."

BY ALL LOGIC AND THE HOPES OF RETAINING the 50-game season Stern said he wanted as a minimum, the new collective bargaining agreement must be agreed to by the end of next week or the 1998-99 NBA season will be shot. The players already have lost $300 million from the $1 billion worth of salaries they were to receive this season. The owners are already well into their $800 million-plus contract with Turner and just a double-header from NBC so far, but they'll have to pay back all the revenues they're receiving now during the four-year term of the contract.

Confusing? Obnoxious. It's all of the above. The best idea yet is to set up a 40-game season, then seed the top 16 teams and play a single-elimination playoff like the NCAA Tournament. It would be incredibly exciting and people would get into it. Right now, it's to the point that this year's product is all but ruined.

One great idea spun out there was to announce it as Michael Jordan's farewell season. That's all well and good for the games the Chicago Bulls play. So will any other team sell out unless they're playing the Bulls?

Probably not. Most teams are in a state of utter chaos. Getting an agreement is just a small portion of the trail the league's general managers must go through. Consider, for a moment, that only seven of the 16 playoff teams (Utah, Indiana, New York, New Jersey, Portland, Cleveland and the Los Angeles Lakers) have nine or more players signed. Ten of the remaining 22 teams have six players or less.

"It will be incredibly challenging . . . to put it mildly," another NBA source said. "Not only do we not have our players, but we don't know what the rules are so we can't prepare other than scout talent. A couple of weeks ago, I never believed the season would be canceled, but now I don't know.

"It will

If the season is lost, David Stern and Russ Granik -- along with the players -- will have some explaining to do. (AP)

take at least four weeks and maybe five just to be ready to play. Once we know the rules, then we have to go through the negotiation process with all these players. Then we have to bring them in, get to know their teammates, and then, everybody has to get in shape to play basketball."

SO IF AND WHEN THE SEASON DOES start, veteran teams with exceptional talent like the Pacers, Jazz, Lakers and Knicks presumably will run roughshod over the rest of the NBA. Can you just imagine how many people will show up in the LA Sports Arena to watch the Clippers play host to the Denver Nuggets? Think about it . . . the Clippers do have 10 players signed. They just don't have a coach, and Michael Olowokandi, the top pick of the draft and the Clippers' center of the future, already is contemplating an offer to play in Turkey.

Monday, former superstar point guard Isiah Thomas, who also was partial owner and president of the Toronto Raptors, went off on Hunter and Ewing, saying they should be replaced. True or not, consider Thomas' conflict of interest. He is an analyst for NBC and is clearly under Stern's sphere of influence. As for his background as NBPA president from 1990-94, he had a collective bargaining agreement signed before he became president and it didn't have to be redone until a year after his presidency had ended.

Then again, the question looms large whether Hunter and Ewing can get a deal done. Ewing has indeed been a zero, making ignorant comments about how they can't live on the money of the deals the NBA is discussing when he's making $20 million or so a year. He also has been horrible with the media for nearly his entire career and required Herb Williams to be there throughout these negotiations to serve as his conduit.

MEANWHILE, HUNTER HAS BEEN brilliant at galvanizing the players and standing up to Stern, which nobody has done since the late Larry Fleisher in 1988. That said, the lockout has begun its sixth month in the first work stoppage ever in the NBA, and Thursday will begin negotiations as the most important day in league history.

Will they now take the gloves off and stick with it until a deal is struck?

"It's all pretty obvious now," a GM said. "In order for Hunter to do a deal quickly before the season, he had to get a great deal from the NBA, and that wasn't going to happen. Then he had to put the gloves on with David and he has. But you've got to believe the players are at the point now . . . 'Please Billy, let's land this puppy. Let's land this puppy now.'"

There's not much choice now. The big dogs will be at the table Thursday, hopefully for the duration. It has nothing to do with who gets in the last bark. They're all in the doghouse and they've run out of time and space.