No Deal! NBA Players Pass
After meeting for a few hours Monday morning, the NBPA’s 30 team player representatives voted unanimously to decline the NBA’s latest proposal.
They will file a Disclaimer of Interest motion which will allow the players to also file anti-trust lawsuits against the NBA.
“As of this moment, we’re going to be in the process of converting the NBA Players Association into a trade associaton,” Hunter said on Monday.
“The players feel that they are not prepared to accept any ultimatums,” he added, something fans had feared since hearing about the league’s alleged Final Offer over a week ago.
“Going forward, collective bargaining will not be how this process continues for us,” said union president Derek Fisher. “We’ll let our legal team really lead the charge.”
This all but guarantees that the 72-game season proposed to begin on December 15th will not be happening, and the hope for the union at this point has to be that the threat of a lawsuit can convince the NBA to come up with what the NBPA would consider a fair deal.
By no means does this equate to the complete cancellation of the 2011-2012 season, but it does show that players are, in fact, prepared to go that route if they can’t get a CBA they feel isn’t a complete loss for them. Despite optimism late last week, it appears as though this thing is far from over.
We’ll have plenty more on site in the coming hours, so stay tuned and keep checking back.
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