HOOPSWORLD | Basketball News & NBA Rumors

NBA owners and players met earlier this evening in an effort to start the process toward negotiating a mutually beneficial new collective bargaining agreement (CBA).

Unlike most negotiation sessions which usually include only the league’s ownership committee and players association, today’s meeting was open and many NBA players made appearances ranging from role players to superstars. More owners were also present in this meeting than ever before and by all reports were more engaged and vocal.

However, despite the progress made by opening the lines of communication the owners and players remain far apart from agreeing to a new CBA before the end of the season. 

"I think it’s going to be difficult to achieve a deal between now and June 30," said players union executive director Billy Hunter.

Fortunately, both parties agreed to keep communicating throughout the remainder of the season and the meeting didn’t add any extra hurdles to overcome. 

"The meeting was somewhat amicable," said Hunter. "We went in with the idea of trying to keep the rhetoric and the volatility down. We talked about our willingness to negotiate and that we wanted to very much avoid a lockout. We kind of spelled out some things that we thought were impediments to getting a deal. At the end of the day what we agreed to do was get together and meet much more often and try as diligently as possible to reach some agreement between now and the end of the season."

The current CBA expires June 30 and the league’s initial offer over a year ago contained some of the impediments Hunter was referring to in his statement. The proposal called for a hard salary cap, salary rollbacks of $700 – $800 million per year, and a significant reduction in guaranteed contracts.

That proposal was rejected by the players union last February during All-Star weekend in Dallas.

"Probably one of the biggest impediments to our getting a deal has been their [owners] demand for a hard salary cap," said Hunter. "We’ve indicated that we just don’t see any way possible for us to accept that. We honestly have concerns about the elimination of guaranteed contracts and the suppression and reduction of the cap. We’re not prepared to swallow that."

The players association believes instead of ownership attempting to invoke a hard salary cap the group should allocate more attention to taking advantage of options already available in the current CBA that can be used during salary negotiations.

"Every team that sits down with a player and his agent has the opportunity to put into that contract what they agree upon," said players association president and Los Angeles Lakers guard Derek Fisher. "If you don’t want to fully guarantee a player’s contract that option is available to the team. Whether or not the player and his agent agree to that is a different story. That’s what a business negotiation is. There are a lot of rights our owners have now that can be put into contracts that at times are chosen not to be exercised."

The owners expect financial losses to be in the neighborhood of $350 million this season, thought to be somewhat driven by bad contracts. But the players union doesn’t believe the league is losing as much money as the owners are projecting and are only willing to slightly reduce their current 57 percent share of all basketball-related income under the present agreement.

"As you’re aware we did submit a proposal to the NBA owners almost a year ago in July 2010," said Hunter. "As of yet we have not gotten a response. But at least coming out of this meeting the indications are that they’re [owners] prepared to talk about everything and we’ve indicated that we’re prepared to talk about everything."

{AUTHOR_BOX} The league has a plethora of examples of smaller market teams hurting financially by paying MAX deals to players they can’t afford and should’ve let walk in free agency. But a lot of the bad contracts owners are burdened with come from their own addiction to excess spending which subsequently leads to overpaying marginal players big money – and losses appearing on the bottom line.

It appears as though NBA owners are looking for a CBA to protect them from themselves.

Fisher agreed with that assessment.

"At times we’ve actually heard some of our owners say that verbatim," said Fisher. ‘We need to be protected from ourselves’ basically. They talk about how competitive they all are and they all want to win so it’s hard to say no at times in terms of contracts and negotiations. As competitors and athletes we can respect that part of it. But at the same time we don’t feel that burden should be completely placed unto our side. If you’re not confident in your decision making ability then we should automatically be suppressed or compressed in a way that keeps you from making a bad decision."

Another bit of information from today’s session revealed that the owners were prepared to pursue a drastically different looking CBA regardless if the league was suffering huge losses or not.

"One of the most revealing things that came out of today’s meeting was a comment by one of the representatives on the owner’s side when pressed by Kevin Murphy our economic expert from the University of Chicago," said Hunter. "Kevin asked the question ‘Whether or not the NBA would be making the same demand of the players if in fact they weren’t suffering any losses’ and they [owners] said ‘yes that they would be.’ "So our contention is it’s not really about losses even though that’s the issue that’s been the most promoted. The reality is it’s about a profit."  

The owners want a hard cap and are pushing the belief that a set salary allotment would eventually balance the power around the league. The players are countering that the way to improve struggling franchises is to alter the way the NBA Draft is conducted and provide the teams with a deeper pipeline of talent.

Under the players new draft proposal the league’s worst 15 teams would pick twice in the first round, while the top 15 teams would be relegated to the second round.

For instance, the worst team would get the top pick and 15th overall pick. The second worst team would get the 2nd and 16th pick and so on down the line.  

Since negotiations are only at the surface level at this time there are still massive gaps that the owners and players association must close to avoid a lockout. Even with the obstacles, the players association’s message was one of optimism moving forward.

"I’m very confident in my ability, our executive committee and Billy’s ability to lead our players to getting something resolved," said Fisher. "But it’s not a one-sided proposition. If officially there is a lockout it’s because our owners are imposing a lockout. We’re going to continue to negotiate in more than good faith."

The owners clearly have the upper hand in this situation. They’re wealthy, well-financed and most of them don’t receive the bulk of their yearly earnings from their basketball franchises.

The players, on the other hand, depend almost exclusively on the money they make from the NBA season. Any stoppage to that income flow over an extended period of time will hurt their pockets.

Expect the players to soften their stance in the upcoming months. The only question is how much will they and when?