Uncertainty Pervades NBA Labor Talks
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

If you’re a Knicks supporter thinking of taunting hockey-deprived Rangers fans this winter, you might want to ease up on the barbs. The skies may be clear for this NBA season, but the storm clouds are gathering just over the horizon.
As the league enters the final year of its labor agreement with the players’ union, a negotiation process that both sides promised would be a bigger love fest than Woodstock has instead become increasingly contentious. Commissioner David Stern and union representative Billy Hunter are still saying all the right things, but their platitudes can’t mask the fact that the NBA could be headed for its first work stoppage since a labor dispute chewed up half the 1998-99 season.
Stern and Hunter stood side by side at the 2003 All-Star Game in Atlanta and vowed things would be peaceful, but the two also claimed they would start work on a new agreement this past summer. If they’ve had any serious negotiations, they must have been held in Dick Cheney’s secret underground bunker, because the rest of the world hasn’t found out about them. In reality, the initial proposals the two sides exchanged only served to highlight the chasm separating them.
The players are still bitter about the agreement they reached in early 1999. One of the stipulations was the infamous luxury tax, which Stern managed to wriggle into the text and has served more or less as a hard salary cap for the past six years. Only about five teams paid enough salary to exceed the luxury tax threshold in each season, which, from the players’ perspective, meant they left a lot of money on the table.
But the luxury tax debate is the most divisive issue, because the owners not only want to keep it, they want to strengthen it. The league’s original proposal actually lowered the luxury tax threshold, which would put even more downward pressure on salaries – an ominous sign for those hoping for a quick resolution.
One thing the league will consider is reducing the “Clipper bonus,” which essentially rewards teams for staying well under the cap by allowing them to collect luxury tax checks from the teams that are making a realistic effort to win. Splitting the luxury tax money among all teams – even those who are above the tax line – could reduce the incentive for the Hawks and Bobcats of the world to stay well under the tax and field non-competitive teams.
While the luxury tax will loom large, here’s a look at some of the other contentious issues:
MINIMUM AGE In response to the recent wave of players declaring for the NBA draft immediately after their prom, Stern has talked about setting a minimum age of 20, which has some benefits for both sides.
For the teams, it would reduce the fundamentals-challenged masses littering the ends of NBA benches. The players don’t have a problem with it either, since presumably none of them plan on being teenagers again. So one might think it would be a no-brainer.
But a few problems stand in the way of its implementation. First, the limit is almost certainly unconstitutional and probably wouldn’t withstand a legal challenge.
Second, while the players don’t care about this issue, their agents do, and they have a disconcerting amount of pull with the union. Third, Stern has realized this can backfire on him – can you imagine how much crap he’d be taking if LeBron James had played in Italy last season?
CONTRACT LENGTH This is a big one. The owners are tired of signing players to six-year deals only to watch them hurt a knee and become an overnight cap-killer – witness Jason Kidd, who still has five years left on his $104 million deal but may not be worth a quarter of that after offseason micro fracture knee surgery.
To inoculate the teams against their own hubris, the league is pushing for a four-year maximum instead of the current system’s six and seven-year deals. (Alas, stupidity knows no cure: This change would not have saved the Nets and Knicks from the twin disasters of the Alonzo Mourning and Dikembe Mutombo signings). The players, obviously, are against it, but for the owners this one may be more important than the luxury tax, so there’s a good chance they’ll give some ground on the tax to get their way on this.
The more immediate effect is that a number of players from the 2001 rookie class, who are eligible for extensions, have opted to lock in six-year extensions now rather than gamble on what could be a four-year limit next summer – the Nets’ Richard Jefferson being a prominent example.
ESCROW If the players can’t get rid of the luxury tax – and chances are they can’t – then this is the next one on their list. The rule forces players to put part of their salary into escrow, and they only get it back if the total amount of salaries are below a certain level. Otherwise the money reverts to the owners.
This provides a second way for the owners to achieve cost certainty. If they overpay players to start with, they can get some of it back in escrow. Needless to say, the players hate it, and it could end up being one of the thorniest issues of the negotiations.
MINOR LEAGUE The owners would like to expand the National Basketball Development League into a true minor league, but the players’ union has zero interest in this. Hunter’s take is simple: If the guys don’t belong in the NBA, don’t draft them.
The league is unlikely to push too hard for it because the luxury tax and contract length are more important issues for them. This is unfortunate, because basketball desperately needs the change, and it would eliminate any need for a minimum age requirement.
SUCCESSION The reason you feel a weird vibe coming from the players’ union is because the man they voted to be their leader doesn’t have a team and spent last year actively angling for a job in management. Michael Curry, who played for Toronto in 2003-04 and might have been the worst player in the league, is currently the NBA’s union chief. By rule, if he doesn’t have a contract when the season starts, the union will replace him.
That has to make you wonder if a team would offer him a contract (wink, wink), with the promise of a job in management after he retires (nudge, nudge), provided he, you know, eases up a little on the union’s demands. While I doubt this would actually happen, having such a vulnerable player as the union chief probably isn’t a great idea from the players’ perspective. It could also delay negotiations if the union is spending its time this fall choosing Curry’s successor.
The NHL should provide an object lesson to any basketball fans with delusions that their league would never go through 1998-99 again. In reality, it entirely depends on the flexibility of the two parties. “If the owners are not inclined to retreat from their current proposal, there’s a high probability there can be another lockout,” Hunter has said. The same could be said for his side.
One can only hope that each will come to its senses in the next year and find a middle ground. Otherwise, the real victim won’t be the players or the owners, but the fans who are stuck spending their winter watching figure skating or cock fighting or, God forbid, hockey. In the meantime, enjoy this season’s sunny weather, but remember to board up the windows and stock up on ice, because that storm is coming sooner than you think.