According to ESPN, Players Association executive director Billy Hunter says the 2011-12 NBA season will likely be canceled entirely because the commissioner’s negotiating leeway is in danger of being undermined by a group of hard-line owners.
“The circumstances have changed among [David Stern's] constituency,” Hunter told a group of lawyers Wednesday, as quoted in the Baltimore Sun. “In the last six or seven years, there is a new group of owners to come in who paid a premium for their franchises, and what they’re doing is kind of holding his feet to the fire.”
Hunter told an American Bar Association conference that if he “had to bet on it”, he would wager that there will be no NBA season.
“We’re $800 million apart per year,” Hunter said Wednesday, adding, “something has to happen that both of us can use as leverage to save face.”
NBA owners and players held a formal collective bargaining session for the first high-level negotiations in a month Monday but after nearly three hours of discussions the sides emerged as far apart as they were when the day began. Stern said the sides were “at the same place” as they were when the lockout began July 1 just before the old collective bargaining agreement ran out.
Read the complete article on ESPN.
That is some bad news! Billy Hunter better be wrong.
Dear NBA, please don’t let this happen.
We are missing a lot of basketball already, wiping out an entire season will be a disaster for the NBA.
Robby Lim
I find this whole thing rather ridiculous ! Stern and Hunter are so creepy in terms of their demeanor and the message they’re now putting out . I say let ‘em have a cage match and battle it out with the winner having the final say on the issue ! They can’t do any worse than the “morons” of the NFL and their little tete a’ tete !
Have a great weekend and stay safe !
tophatal …..
Well put tophatal,
a cage match between Hunter and Stern should be fun to watch again thanks for the regular reads and comments.
Have a great weekend as well.
— Robby
Robby
This lockout has nothing to do with labor issues but simply greed ! The team owners and league hierarchy are now seeing that their own misguided judgment has led them to where they now are . At the same time the union shouldn’t be let off the hook for showing their own intransigence at all as they’re equally to blame .
If Stern and Hunter could be persuaded to participate in such an event I’d gladly watch ! Have David Stern armed with a trident and net and Billy Hunter merely with a sword and shield ………….”to the death I say ” !
tophatal …….
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