David Stern left the owners' NBA lockout offer -- what amounts to a 50-50 revenue split, the creation of a second, smaller mid-level exception for teams over the luxury tax and a restriction for sign-and-trades for teams over the tax line -- on the table until Wednesday. If it is not accepted by the players' union, the league will drop its offer to 47 percent of revenue for players and what amounts to a hard cap.
Reports from Saturday suggested that a majority of players may be willing to accept a 50-50 deal. But union president Derek Fisher told reporters after talks broke down Saturday that he would not be presenting the NBA's offer for a vote. Why? TrueHoop's Henry Abbott explains, with help from union lawyer Jeffrey Kessler:
Kessler explains the reasoning for the mechanism is because no union wants to let employers address workers directly. You don't want your opponents to have direct access to your constituents. The fully informed committee has an obligation to keep bad deals from the rank and file, who have entrusted the process to them. This protects players from accepting an offer that might sound good to them, but would, in the judgment of those who have analyzed it most thoroughly, actually be bad news.
Despite this, expect fans and some players to agitate for a vote before Wednesday. Whether they'll get it is another matter entirely.
1 comment
5
Nov 28
3
Nov 27
Comments
#letthemvote
This is the stupidest thing I’ve heard in a long time. If the NBPA takes a de-certification vote without ever having voted on any of the owners’ proposals, Billy Hunter and Derek Fisher will officially be the worst player union president and player union director EVER! Seems like the rank and file have no faith in the NBPA’s leadership at this point. Also , this may be the end of my interest in the NBA.
So here’s my solution, we need to start a twitter campaign like the players did with the whole "let them play" crap that was the least successful twitter campaign ever. Because it was the least successful ever, there’s not much for us fans to live up to. Also, the fan voice is the one voice that has not yet been heard in this whole thing.
#letthemvote, as in Derek Fisher and Billy Hunter, please let the players vote on the owners’ latest offer BEFORE the de-certification vote. It is completely ridiculous that the union’s rank and file have yet to vote on anything and that there is a real chance that the first vote they take will be to de-certify.
by tyrantking on Nov 7, 2011 2:09 PM EST reply actions
Comments For This Post Are Closed