For more than a year, the sports world has done nothing but discuss the nuances of the discrepancies that took place in the negotiation process between the NHL leadership and the players' union, which brought life in the strongest hockey league to a halt for a year. After the forced downtime, during which players turned out to be less protected, the hockey players made concessions and became more accommodating. The prospect of missing yet another season and losing out on a decent amount of money, naturally, frightened them seriously.
But the conflict of interests and its consequences, it seems, taught absolutely nothing to other representatives of professional North American leagues. For example, the basketball one - the NBA. Back in February, the commissioner of the National Basketball Association, David Stern, at a press conference after a meeting with the director of the basketball players' union, Billy Hunter, announced that the parties had not yet reached a consensus and had not signed a new labor agreement. And without it, the season will not begin. In June, the previous seven-year agreement expires, and it is time to sign a new one.
But then, in February, Stern was fairly optimistic, claiming that "we will agree on everything at the end of the season." The very top boss of the NBA and defender of the league's interests was perhaps playing diplomacy, not putting pressure either on himself or on his opponents. But at the same time, his statements of four months ago hinted at certain difficulties that had arisen during the negotiation process: "Maybe I am taking my wishes for reality, but it seems to me that we will agree on everything at the end of the season."
Well, Stern's fears were confirmed. The intentions of the club bosses and the NBA do not coincide with the desires of the players, who have no desire at all to limit their salaries and certain freedoms. Quite the opposite - they want to get as much as possible. That is quite natural, but everything has a limit. Including salary growth. Basketball players' agents, who live off percentages of their clients' contracts, have become very good at pulling chestnuts out of the fire and are not at all against additional deductions. It is said that it is the agents who push their clients to be uncompromising and stand their ground to the end. Given the tough stance of the NBA and Stern, one can assume only one thing: if the basketball players and their "puppeteers" do not come down to earth, a lockout cannot be avoided.
The cancellation of the season, which should not be ruled out, will hit the pockets of the basketball players, the clubs, and the NBA itself. It is easier for the players - the whole rest of the world is in front of them, which will gladly accept excellent performers, for whom the single fact of playing in the NBA can serve as the best recommendation. But is the rest of the world ready to pay such high fees to the stars of the National Basketball Association? I doubt it very much.
Take, for instance, the Russian Andrei Kirilenko. In November of last year, he signed a new contract with Utah Jazz, according to which he will receive $86 million 365 thousand over six seasons. That is over 14 million dollars a year. Who can offer him an equally substantial contract even for one year? And Kirilenko is far from being the main star of the NBA. And, naturally, not the highest-paid player. So basketball players will lose a good deal from a lockout, and they should not put on airs in front of the cameras, but sit down with a calculator and count their possible salary losses.
Since we have mentioned Kirilenko, let us note that the current season did not work out for the Russian at all. Due to injury, Andrei missed a lot. And Utah, contrary to experts' forecasts, did not make a step forward in its results. Possibly precisely because of the absence of Kirilenko, who is the team's key player.
The best of the other natives of the former Soviet republics in the concluding season was the Lithuanian Ilgauskas. However, for Žydrūnas this is a habitual indicator to which the NBA veteran has accustomed his fans. But another veteran of the league, the Ukrainian Vitaly Potapenko, is gradually accustoming us to the idea of an imminent end of his career. Perhaps he plays some significant role in the team collective "Ukrainian Train," but he appears on the court less and less often.
The season was also a complete failure for another of our compatriots, Stanislav Medvedenko. It seemed with the departure of Karl Malone and Shaquille O'Neal, an "ironclad" place in the starting lineup of the Los Angeles Lakers opened up for the Ukrainian. But Medvedenko firmly settled on the bench, due to which he repeatedly stated his desire to leave the team. However, the return to Los Angeles of one of the two most decorated coaches in NBA history, Phil Jackson (the second being Red Auerbach), may influence Stanislav's decision. After all, it was Jackson who invited the Kyiv native to the club and made him a two-time NBA champion.
But Jackson's return, judging by information coming from the headquarters of the two warring camps - the NBA leadership and the players' union - may go unnoticed. Or simply may not take place because the season itself will not start.
Incidentally, David Stern, believing that in order for the league to obtain solid profits from contracts with television companies, it is necessary to make the NBA as spectacular as possible and try to eliminate all negative phenomena, continues to tighten the screws. At the end of April, the league commissioner said that in the future he intends to strengthen doping control (this issue should become one of the points of the new collective agreement between the NBA and the union). Currently, the NBA monitors the use of drugs and some types of steroids by basketball players. A player may be suspended for five games for a positive steroid test, and in the event of repeated violations, the sanctions increase to 10 or even 25 games.
The league's conflict with the union is a common thing. These are work issues that have to be resolved every day by the hundred. True, some of them turn out to be high-profile. For example, the brawl staged by the players of Detroit and Indiana on the court, with the participation of fans. Such things have a negative impact on the NBA's image, and therefore Stern was very harsh: one basketball player (Ron Artest) was disqualified for 73 games, and two more - for 30 and 25.
The union decided to appeal the decision of the NBA commissioner, and Bill Hunter filed an appeal: "The terms of disqualification should be reduced. Under the labor agreement between the NBA and the union, the appeal will be considered by the same gentleman who made the disqualification decision - the league commissioner Stern. I am going to challenge him. I want an independent party to act as judge." And, naturally, the union immediately came out in favor of depriving the league commissioner of the right to a sole decision in imposing disciplinary punishments on players in the next labor agreement.
Whether the negotiations will be successful may become known in the near future. The old agreement expires on the night from June 30 to July 1. The main difficulties in the negotiations will concern the introduction of doping control (players are against), permitted contract terms, and the minimum age for NBA rookies (Stern insists that there should be no basketball players younger than 20 in the league), the "salary cap" and the "luxury tax." At the same time, the league leadership is ready to raise the level of player salaries by 3% - from 54% to 57% of revenues to the NBA treasury, due to which the average salary will increase from $4.5 million per year to $5.5 million.
But the negotiations have not led to anything so far. Union representatives noted that they had made a proposal to extend the terms of the agreement, but NBA representatives refused: "They are looking for greater benefits from the agreement, while we have made the main proposals," noted Bill Hunter.
"The union will make a monumental mistake if it lets the matter come to a lockout. I don't think most players know what is happening," NBA commissioner David Stern said in response. If a new labor agreement is not signed by July 1, 2005, the league leadership will do the same as on July 1, 1998 - declare a lockout. Seven years ago, misunderstandings also arose during the process of signing the agreement between the NBA and the union. The lockout, which lasted six months, forced the parties to become more accommodating, but the season was shortened due to the forced downtime: each team played 50 games instead of 82.
Can the fear of being left without pay push union members to a compromise? Most likely not: the most irreconcilable opponents of team owners are athletes with high earnings who have been playing in the league for quite a few years. They, as a rule, dominate. And guys with little experience are afraid to go against the veterans. One of the "greats" - David Robinson - once went so far as to say that white team owners treat black players like slaves. And that with his multi-million dollar contract!
This time Stern, whose powers are much broader than those of the heads of other professional leagues in North America, is much more determined than seven years ago: "We made concessions," he told reporters in San Antonio on the day of the second game of the NBA finals playoff series. "If our proposals are rejected, we will withdraw the concessions. And our new conditions will be tougher." The response of the union's executive director Billy Hunter can be roughly translated as: "You can't intimidate us!"