The National Basketball Players Association (@TheNBPA) started a Twitter feed about a year ago, using the social media venue to tweet out links to stories about players doing good things and various labor-related issues. As the lockout approached, the tweeting seemed to focus hard on pro-union coverage ... as it should.
The NBA went about fighting the lockout war on Twitter a bit differently. It has kept its very popular @NBA feed out of it, for the most part. Last week, it started up a new lockout-centric feed, @NBA_Labor. (What a funny little handle, when you think about it.) It hasn't taken to linking to pro-league coverage. It has taken to "correcting" players and reporters who "misstate" the league's proposal.
It was only a matter of time before @TheNBPA and @NBA_Labor butted heads.
@NBA_Labor began presenting the league's concessions this afternoon, along the lines of ...
NBA Proposal: PA asked & NBA said yes - no hard cap; fully guaranteed contracts; no "rollbacks" to existing plyr contracts
What the NBA is saying here is that in its current take-it-or-leave-it proposal, the league has accepted the union's requests that there be no hard salary, that contracts are fully guaranteed and that there are no rollbacks to existing player contracts. Here's @TheNBPA's response:
As to PA asked & NBA said yes...it is not considered a concession to give players what they've already had for 30 years.
There's more about the mid-level and other issues. But one thing is clear from this experiment in next-level collective bargaining: we are all losers. All of us. There are Drake jokes to be made and guilty verdicts to be relayed. And we're watching faceless organizations argue over semantics. We all lose.