NBA player agent David Falk yesterday urged NBA Commissioner David Stern and NBPA Exec Dir Billy Hunter to make a deal to end the NBA lockout soon, saying if they do not, they are at risk of losing the entire season. “I believe that Billy Hunter and David Stern were hired to make a deal and as George Allen used to say, ‘The future is now,’” Falk said. "If we don't have a deal, they are not doing their jobs, and in our business, when people aren't doing their jobs, they are replaced." Falk, who was the most powerful basketball agent in the '90s and represented many stars, including Michael Jordan, was very involved with the union in past labor disputes, including the '98-99 lockout, in which half the season was lost. But Falk has not been as vocal in this ongoing labor dispute. Falk said there is a widespread belief that if the '11-12 NBA season does not start on time there will be an abbreviated season because of what happened in the last lockout. However, he does not believe that is the case. “If we miss any regular season games, I am skeptical we will have a season,” he said. Falk added he believes that for a number of reasons, including that there are NBA club owners losing money. Falk, along with powerful NBA agent Arn Tellem and their clients, led the charge to try to decertify the NBPA in '95, but failed to get the needed majority in a vote by players. Falk said yesterday that he is not part of a group of agents who want the NBPA to decertify. “No one has called and asked me my opinion, so I am sort of amused by it,” he said. “At some point in time, whether it’s this week or this year or next year, this will be resolved,” Falk said. “And when it gets resolved we will be in the same revenue sharing arrangement that we have been in since 1982. ... If both sides take too much time to get that agreement, they alienated the fans and they are going to depreciate the amount of money they are splitting. What do you win? Are you better off making a deal or are you better off with the scorched earth policy? I think the scorched earth approach has a very heavy price.” Falk said that although he is not part of the agent conversations about decertification, “I am having almost daily conversations about collective bargaining for the last month” (Liz Mullen, SportsBusiness Journal).
TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE: The NBA and NBPA are scheduled to meet today, and in DC, Mike Wise notes the sides "are on the outside of about a six-week window to get everything done." Hunter acknowledged, "It may come down to there will be games lost. No one wants that. I’m not interested in taking an intransigent position." He added, "We might have to cancel preseason. You figure you need two weeks of signings, two weeks of training camp and they’d be ready to go. I don’t know if it’s going to happen. I’ve given the concessions that I think are fair." Wise notes Hunter "has people whispering in players’ ears, many of whom have their own agenda -- including agents pushing for union decertification." Hunter said, "I refuse to treat decertification as a game. I won’t take it off the table because it’s still a last resort. But that’s not what I have in mind at the moment. If we end up decertifying, it means we’re through talking -- and that’s not going to be good for anybody." He added, "Look, some of the agents are hurting. ... They don’t have money coming in. They have big payrolls. A lot of this is about the agents and not the players. We prepared the players to miss paychecks. Some of the agents, though, have acted out of their own self-interest. If something doesn’t happen, some are going out of business" (WASHINGTON POST, 9/22). However, YAHOO SPORTS' Adrian Wojnarowski reports some top agents privately "swear they won't let Billy Hunter cut a crippling collective bargaining deal," and that they will not let his "parting gift to the union membership be deeper concessions, givebacks to the owners." One agent said, "The players don't want to make these kinds of concessions, yet the union keeps giving them. The union hasn't been listening to its players." Wojnarowski notes everyone involved in the talks "knows this is Hunter's final stand" as the leader of the union, and he "ultimately won't have to live with the consequences of the agreement." An NBA exec said, "There's a lot of money and control at stake here. I've never seen people who are in negotiations with each other give up those two things easily. There will be a nasty fight at some point among the owners, the players and the agents. ... It's just a matter of which two entities it will be" (SPORTS.YAHOO.com, 9/22).
CLEARING UP SOME CONFUSION: NBPA President Derek Fisher appeared on ESPN2's "Jim Rome Is Burning" and addressed several issues related to the lockout. He said reports of separation between players are "not true." Fisher said, "Our players are together, we’re unified, we understand the situation that we’re in. We realize that the lockout is owner imposed, not player imposed, and in terms of the news and the fracture that really wasn’t the case. We had an opportunity a week ago to clear that up and make sure that we all understood where we are as a group. We accomplished that goal.” He added players will stay unified even if they start missing game checks because “we’ve continued to educate our players and inform our guys (of) the circumstances they’ll face.” Fisher: “We’ve been working for this time for two years now.” Meanwhile, Fisher noted stars like Lakers G Kobe Bryant, Heat F LeBron James and Knicks F Carmelo Anthony have been "taking a huge role in this process," but they have not "run after the cameras and after the spotlight when we’ve had meetings and opportunities to visit with the media." They are working "behind the scenes ... by design." Fisher: "We cannot have a process where 430-plus guys are all involved at one time, so at different times you’re going to have higher involvement based on what we need.” Following Fisher's interview, host Jim Rome said, "It’s hard to imagine that this thing is going to end well for the players.” Boston Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy said, “This is a broken model. I’m not an economist, but the math doesn’t work" ("Jim Rome Is Burning," ESPN2, 9/21).
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Lewis will have NBA's second-highest salary
next year at $22M |
DON'T HATE THE PLAYERS: Wizards F Rashard Lewis is slated to make the NBA's second-highest salary next season, $22M, but he said, "I’m willing to sacrifice my salary to get a fair deal." Lewis believes that he "shouldn’t be blamed for the six-year, $118 million contract he signed" with the Magic in '07. He said, "Talk to the owner. He gave me the deal. When it comes to contracts, the players aren’t sitting there negotiating that contract. I’m sitting at home and my agent calls me, saying, ‘I got a max on the table.’ I’m not going to sit there and say, ‘Naw, that’s too much. Go out there and negotiate $20 or $30 (million) less.' ... I understand the owners don’t want to overpay players, but you’ve got to do better negotiating. Try your best to save money." Lewis admitted, "We may miss half the season or the whole season" (WASHINGTON POST, 9/22). Meanwhile, Nuggets F Kenyon Martin "will sign a contract to play with Xingiang Guanghui in the Chinese Basketball Association." Martin's contract "will be the biggest" in league history, and his agent, Andy Miller, said, "It also gives him an opportunity to expand his name globally" (DENVERPOST.com, 9/21). Pistons F Austin Daye has signed a two-month deal with a team in Russia. The deal expires in December, but Daye "can opt-out in case the NBA's collective bargaining situation is resolved quickly" (DETROIT NEWS, 9/22).
