NBA sides have been meeting secretly; 66 game season eyed

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At a certain point, the sides had to start talking again, right?

And after two dozen negotiating sessions that played out in public, with both sides issuing their spin in comments to the media afterward (with the exception of sessions mediated by George Cohen), we are now learning that secret meetings have been taking place yesterday and today — presumably in an effort to settle all matters related to the NBA lockout, which would include litigation and collective bargaining matters.

Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports broke the news on his Twitter feed, noting that Derek Fisher, president of what used to be the players’ union, is not taking part in the discussions. Howard Beck of the New York Times says the league is eyeing a 66-game season that would begin on Christmas Day, Dec. 25. Beck also says the sides will met again Friday after taking a day off for Thanksgiving.

So there is some renewed hope, but it should be tempered with a cautionary word: Talking in private, and keeping word of the negotiations out of the public eye, can only be helpful to the process if there is a concerted effort and willingness on both sides to push this negotiation over the finish line. During the 1998-99 lockout, it was far more common for the sides to meet discreetly, but those sessions proved to be as fruitless as the larger, more public negotiating sessions.

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Hubbard column: In a thankless league, we still manage to, well, give thanks

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In the spirit of the approaching holiday, I spent a modest amount of time researching the word “turkey,” because I wondered how it might symbolize the essence of the current NBA. There seemed to be a logical connection.

One web site pointed out that the poultry bird became a popular food item because it was an excellent source of meat, and beyond that, it was “easily shot.” Our heroes at the NBA have done an excellent job of shooting – themselves and each other. So there was that.

Ben Franklin thought the turkey to be such an honorable bird that he wanted it to be the symbol of the U.S. rather than the Bald Eagle, whom he described as a “coward.” The key words in that passage are “honorable” and “coward,” but, of course, I’m not going there.

The turkey was commonly served at Thanksgiving in the late 1700s, according to my research, but did not become a national staple until the 1800s. Lots of tradition there – kind of like having NBA games in November.

I never found a definitive explanation of why “turkey” became a word to describe a loser. There were a number of references to the fact turkeys have small heads, thus small brains and, well, they aren’t the brightest animals in the farmyard. Some dispute that but the key words in that passage are “loser” and “brightest.” Of course, I’m not going there.

According to Houghton Mifflin Word Origins, in the 1920s “turkey” became a description of a play or movie that failed, and in the 1950s for a person who is incompetent. So the term has been around a long time and unfortunately as we prepare to miss two games on Thanksgiving and 14 more on Friday, we find ourselves in the midst of a great number of turkeys – and I’m not talking about Ben Franklin’s honorable kind.

As those associated in a variety of direct and non-direct ways with the NBA prepare for Thanksgiving, we try to imagine ourselves sitting with them at the dinner table and giving thanks for the current predicament of the league. And for those with no sense of humor, a warning that these are served with a healthy dose of acerbic trimmings.

So who will the key players be thanking on Thursday? Some possibilities.

David Stern: Thank you for the new owners, who have brought hundreds of millions of dollars to the league and, as you know, I’m a guy who’s all about money. I really can’t say thanks for tying my hands and not letting me make a deal because with just a little less asshattery (thanks to my buddy Ken Berger of CBSSports.com for that word), I could have gotten the deal done. And although it’s true you new guys have been the largest force in damaging a reputation that I worked so hard to build for the last 28 years as commissioner, you’re still rich and we should all give thanks for that.

Billy Hunter: Thank you David Stern for being so pugnacious. I know you were under pressure from owners, but if you had acted with a little humility, I would have convinced the players to offer a few tweaks and we could have gotten the job done. But now your demeanor has galvanized the players and made me look – at least to them – like the greatest statesman this side of Churchill. You’re a good man. And by the way, unlike you, I’m still getting paid.

Minimum wage players: OK, we make nearly $500,000 a year when we get to play and we owe thanks for that. But most of all, we want to thank the veteran players who have made more than $100 million in their careers and have enough saved up to not work the rest of their lives. Guys like Kevin Garnett and LeBron James have been big loudmouths about not giving in to the owners. Some of us may never play in the NBA again because we are the guys who are the 13th or 14th man on the roster and we are replaced nearly every year. But, hey, thanks vets for teaching us the value of principles. Unfortunately, principles don’t buy Christmas presents, but despite having less money, we are better men because of you guys. We have principles! Yeah!

Lawyers: Thank you David, Billy, owners, players, everybody. We are now officially the controlling party in Occupy NBA and unlike other demonstrators, we are in the top one percent and we owe it all to you guys. Love you. Let’s keep disagreeing.

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Sheridan column: Boies wavers on whether he’ll call NBA

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NEW YORK — The next logical step in the illogical NBA lockout is for David Boies to call Jeffrey Mishkin, or for Jeffrey Mishkin to call David Boies.

The latter attorney, Boies, who represented Al Gore against George W. Bush in the 2000 U.S. presidential election, now represents NBA players, and Mishkin is the outside counsel for NBA commissioner David Stern and the owners.

It would take approximately 2 minutes for their secretaries to put that call together.

And after obfuscating and posturing for the better part of an hour in a meeting with reporters Monday night, Boies finally yielded to the  relentless logical questioning of yours truly, put his hands to his temples for 13 seconds and then said he may just go ahead and make that phone call sometime in the next day or two.

“Some lawyers say to pick up the phone is a sign of weakness,” Boies said. “But if you’re weak, you’re weak, and if you’re strong, you’re strong.  It doesn’t make you weak or strong by your calling or not calling. On the other hand, until they’re prepared to say something other than what they just put out in this statement, the question is, why are you calling?”

This particular episode of peacocking … oops, I mean news briefing … was designed to be a show of strength from the players’ new lead attorney, an epic billable hour ($1,225 is Boies’ going rate) of rhetorical posturing about how the NBA owners are now in really, really big trouble because they are leaving themselves open for triple damages —  about $6 billion if the entire 2011-12 season is missed.

Boies announced that two separate players’ lawsuits were being combined, with a new suit being filed in Minnesota, the same jurisdiction — covered by the 8th Circuit in the Court of Appeals — where the NFL players had their temporary restraining order ending the NFL lockout overturned.

“I suspect that we will hear from them, either in settlement discussions or litigation. They are going to have to answer the complaint, and were looking forward to engaging them,” Boies said. ”If this is a matter that can be settled, we’re prepared to do that. If the league’s approach is to ignore this litigation and try to go into a state of denial and hope it goes away, I think that will be not in anyone’s interest.”

With former union director Billy Hunter sitting alongside him, the players’ new lead advocate said combining the complaints was the best way to expedite the case, to which I strenuously objected. Yes, I understand that it is probably incumbent upon the owners to pick up the phone first, since it is bad form for an attorney to sue someone and then call them up to ask if they’d like to settle.

But the NBA owners have gone mum, and at a certain point it can do no harm to make an exploratory call to the people you just filed suit against. It might not be the traditional thing to do, but it wouldn’t be the worst thing, either.

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Heisler column: OK wackos, whose move is it?

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The 1 Percent Solution (Cont.): Let’s see, a 2 percent difference, divided by two warring parties is …

Anyone?

Anyone?

OK, it’s still insoluble for NBA owners and players, now reportedly down to back-channel contacts, which may just mean Tim Frank and Dan Wasserman, the p.r. guys, found themselves in the same line at Starbucks.

On the other hand, if the side at 50 percent of revenue isn’t in touch with the side at 52 percent while their lawyers prepare to sue each other back to the Stone Age, someone is crazy.

Not that that means much with so many of the participants having already gone certifiably bonkers.

With 24 percent of the schedule gone, the tab is $1 billion, payable this season… to fight over one percentage point worth $500 million, over 10 years.

That’s before assessing the damage the NBA has done to itself after 12 seasons of trying to rebuild its image since Michael Jordan left Chicago.

Happily, or not, who even knows the NBA isn’t playing?

Check national talk shows. Aside from broadcast partners like ESPN, few people are paying the NBA the compliment of noticing it’s gone.

The few who do aren’t really paying attention, saying predictable things about Players Spurning All That Money.

Yes, NBA players are often divas, and, as a group, teams (if not owners) have long lived close to the blade economically.

Now the owners’ problem is as much their rich ones trying to keep their wildly disproportionate profits from the small ones.

The players have already signed off on a mega-giveback.

As far as gains, the players get none in this deal which cuts contract length and raises as usual… ready to take 51 percent, down from 57, a giveback worth $2.7 billion over 10 years, by itself.

That’s a conservative estimate, based on splitting the NBA’s projected 5 percent gain this season in half (that’s 2.5 percent for owners unfamiliar with the process), which would put revenues at a $4.5 billion average over 10 years.

Offered $2.7 billion, the owners said they couldn’t live with $1 less than $3.2 billion and the players could take it or leave it.

The owners are now supposedly back down to 47 percent, seeking rollbacks of existing contracts, etc., at least according to the timetable they announced.

Actually, David Stern hasn’t mentioned that lately, to avoid confusion with the players’ charge the NBA refused to bargain in good faith, the basis of their anti-trust suit.

Leaving legal strategy aside, if there are owners waiting for the players to give up, and we know who you are, they got it wrong, again.

The only pressure on Billy Hunter and Derek Fisher has come from big agents and other militants that finally led to decertification.

Actually, Hunter should have done it months ago.

In 1998-99 with the big agents in control of the union ready to shut down in defense of their stars’ uncapped salaries, the divided players held out until the January drop-dead date and made a deal without decertifying.

Hunter could be forgiven for thinking nothing could be that bad again.

Or maybe, as Yahoo’s Adrian Wojnarowski suggested, Billy wanted to keep drawing his pay.

In any case, courts have a sobering effect on over-entitled owners, who recognize few enough limits.

The conventional wisdom is that last spring’s NFL players’ suit had no effect, since the league got its lockout reinstated on appeal.

Actually, decertification hit NFL owners, the most entitled of all, between the eyes.

One day Carolina Pantthers owner Jerry Richardson was calling Peyton Manning “son” and asking if he needed help reading a profit and loss sheet.

The next day, the owners’ demand for an expanded schedule was relegated to an issue they could reintroduce (and the players could resist). Peace arrived in time to play almost all the exhibition games.

Meanwhile, Hunter was giving Stern and NBA owners the summer off.

Maybe Hunter thought too much of Stern, even knowing how crazed the owners were.

Maybe Billy thought too much of the NBA owners.

Actually, so did I, after a career of covering as many owners’ foibles as players’ foibles. Live and learn.

When this started, I dismissed the owners’ incredible claims of $300 million annual losses, assuming time and the process would reveal the truth.

Indeed, Stern, who’s rational, if not one who likes to be crossed, dropped his draconian demands in October, trying to get the 50-50 deal insiders said he wanted all along.

Knowing the pressure on Stern, it wasn’t surprising that he cancelled the first two weeks.

Big kidder that he is, Stern had an ace in the hole, a plan to turn back the clock and play 82 games.

That was when they almost made peace, after which the warmongers inherited the league.

Of course, no one goes to war for 2 percent unless they’re wackos, don’t need the money or both.

OK, wackos, whose move is it again?

Mark Heisler is a regular contributor to SheridanHoops. His columns appear each Monday.


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NBA Lockout Update: This and That

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Good morning. There ain’t no news to report, so a little of this and a little of that. We start with Mr. Jimmy Kimmel on NBA-TV’s programming quagmire:

Watching that video prompted me to check out what the folks over at NBA.com have lined up for our multimedia needs today, and it turns out the season will start in 26 days with a nice lineup of Friday night games that includes an ESPN doubleheader of Atlanta-Philadelphia and Oklahoma City-San Antonio. At least that’s what their schedule says.

Of course, we all know by now that the schedule the NBA had planned on following will be torn up and replaced by an entirely new schedule once the lockout gets resolved by the logical and reasonable men negotiating it.

Maybe, just maybe, that schedule will feature Christmas as opening night. Paging George Cohen.

From Ken Berger of CBSSports.com: “Despite the grim outlook of potentially lengthy and costly lawsuits, there are strong indications that NBA officials and attorneys representing the players want to take one more shot at reaching a settlement before the possibility of having close to a full season is devoured by the legal process. Two people who have been briefed on the league’s strategy told CBSSports.com the NBA is holding out hope a settlement can be reached in time for the season to begin no later than Christmas. One of those people said the process already is under way through what he described as “back-channeling,” although sources from both sides professed no knowledge of such conversations. A third person said that based on how vendor contracts and other financial arrangements were put in place, starting the season by Christmas would be optimal as far as preserving those relationships, and of course, revenues. Multiple people who have spoken with top NBA officials about the matter said it is understood that starting the season after Christmas is not viewed as a viable option. ”I don’t know that there’s an appetite for a 50-game season,” another person familiar with the league’s position said.”

Meanwhile, the chorus of NBA players making noise about playing overseas continues to grow louder. Pau Gasol has said that he and his brother, Marc, would like to team up and play for FC Barcelona, which might actually get a few Americans to turn their attention across the pond. Barca, the former team of now incognito Californian Ricky Rubio, is one of two remaining undefeated teams in Euroleague, with a starting backcourt of Marcelinho Huertas and Juan Carlos Navarro. Add the Gasol brothers to that duo, and Catalonia here we come!

But about that lockout.

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