You've got mail
NBA commissioner mails each player nine-page proposal
Posted: Friday December 18, 1998 11:59 AM
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Jim McIlvaine: "It's basically what we've been telling the players, so I don't think anyone who reads it will be surprised" Otto Greule/Allsport |
NEW YORK (AP) -- Commissioner David Stern took his case directly to the
players Thursday, mailing each of them a nine-page letter outlining the
owners' latest collective bargaining proposal.
The letter, complete with charts and graphs, was sent by overnight mail
as the opposing sides were deep into another lull in talks. No new
negotiations are expected until after Christmas.
"I urge you to focus on the extent of the compromises the owners have
made from their initial bargaining demands," Stern wrote. "The proposals
now on the table represent the following significant concessions that were
made in direct response to your union's forceful assertion of your
concerns":
• No hard salary cap.
• The retention of the
Larry Bird exception.
• No immediate changes to free agency timing
rules.
• A limit to the escrow tax that would be collected from
players' paychecks.
"We view this as a desperation tactic by the NBA," union director Billy
Hunter said in a statement. "They had counted on the passage of time to
weaken the players, and it has become obvious that strategy has failed. The
fact is, we have kept the players fully apprised of the league's offer."
The union sent its players a 19-page response, and Hunter moved forward
with his newfound eagerness to take his case to the public. After holding
his longest and most detailed conference call of the 5 1/2-month-old
lockout a day earlier, Hunter visited an all-sports radio station in New
York and spent 90 minutes on the air before going on a nationwide cable
television sports talk show.
After previously insisting that there undoubtedly will be a season,
Hunter changed his tune somewhat.
"At this stage I'm not so sure," he said. "I can't say I'm convinced
there will be a season. I think the owners have already decided if they
have to sacrifice this year in exchange for their long-term gain, they're
prepared to do it. But if they are ready to make a deal and are prepared to
compromise, we can make a deal tomorrow."
The sides are fighting over how to split $2 billion in annual revenue.
Several major issues remain unresolved, with the main points of
contention being what percentage of revenue will be devoted to salaries,
whether the union will accept an absolute limit on what players with more
than seven years' experience can be paid, and whether the owners will
accept additional salary cap exceptions that would increase the number of
players in the league's so-called "middle class."
Stern's letter, which also was released to the media, included a
12-point summary of the principal economic terms of a new agreement.
Details included overall salary growth, maximum and minimum salaries,
cap exceptions, maximum annual raises, changes to the rookie scale and the
group licensing agreement, and the length of the new deal.
Some of the owners' changes to their previous proposals had not
previously been disclosed. Among them:
• An increase in the
maximum allowable raise, from 10 percent on Bird contracts and 5 percent on
other contracts, to 12.5 percent on Bird contracts and 7.5 percent on
others.
• Allowing a maximum contract length of seven years for
Bird players, up from six years, and six years for other contracts, up from
five.
• Allowing a team to use the new "middle class exception" to
re-sign its own free agent, instead of limiting it to another team's free
agent.
"It's basically what we've been telling the players, so I don't think
anyone who reads it will be surprised," said negotiating team member Jim McIlvaine
of the Seattle
SuperSonics.
McIlvaine said the letter was suspiciously vague in mentioning changes
"in certain other salary cap rules" without detailing them. He also pointed
out that salaries are guaranteed to rise 5 percent annually after growing
16 percent annually in previous years.
A union attorney also noted that the owners' offer would decrease
salaries for second-year players from the approximately $315,000 they would
have received under the old agreement to $250,000.
Copyright 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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