NBA Lockout Watch, Day 46: Stern Explains Stance In Extended Talk With ESPN's Simmons

NBA Commissioner David Stern appeared on the latest episode of ESPN.com's "The B.S. Report" podcast and said he remains "optimistic that we're going to make a deal" to end the lockout. Stern said, "The urgency is set in a certain way by the rejection of our underlying premise that this is the time to have a reset, this is the time to try to hold for the players most of what they have and sort of grow our way out of the situation we find ourselves in. The players very strongly disagree and to this point, don’t even want to discuss it.” Stern said the players "throw around words like ‘greedy,’ ‘arrogant’ and a variety of other things that would tend to inflame things. And I think our owners have been remarkably calm because the logic of where we’re going is hard to disagree with.” He noted the NBPA's latest CBA proposal “doesn’t even begin to respond to the issues.” Stern: “The logic is so compelling that when the players get briefed on where we are and they understand it so we can get rid of a lot of the debris that somehow has been thrown in here, then this will begin to move.” Stern said there is "going to be a revenue-sharing” system and the “big owners” in the league “are on-board.” Stern: “They fundamentally say that we understand that we depend on other teams to come into our building and we’re prepared to share revenue. ... I’ve never seen such unity of purpose amongst our owners." Stern: "There are no cracks in the ownership. The blogosphere is buzzing with like all these owners who (are) supposedly driving the collective bargaining. The blogosphere has it all wrong. It’s absolutely fiction, as is the idea our owners are not united.”

OPEN TO CONTRACTION: Stern said the issue of contraction is “not a subject we’re against.” Stern: “In fact, when you’re talking about revenue-sharing, a number of teams have said that if you have a team that is perpetually going to be a recipient, aren’t you better off with the ability to buy them in. ... The players have actually been heard to suggest that as well.” Contraction is going to be “driven as much by teams that are going to say that revenue-sharing is inefficient in certain markets. But then again, if you look for volunteers there aren’t many teams raising their hand and that’s an interesting subject.”

TIME TO LOOK FOR MORE REVENUE OPPORTUNITIES? ESPN's Bill Simmons said to Stern, “If I’m from the players’ side, I don’t feel like you guys have exhausted enough opportunities to make revenue from the league that you have. Why don’t you have sponsored jerseys?” Stern: “I know you think we’re dumb, but we’re not quite as dumb as you make us out to be, because that’s an assessment that we do continually. But once a sponsor decides that they want to spend tens of millions of dollars on sponsoring a jersey, then they’re going to lower their expression of support on team broadcasts, on network broadcasts, even on podcasts because you do have an issue. So it’s not the panacea that you think it is” ("The B.S. Report," ESPN.com, 8/12).