The NBA and the National Basketball Players Association will open negotiations toward a new collective bargaining agreement in August, players association executive director Michele Roberts tells Gary Washburn of The Boston Globe (Twitter link). That’s well in advance of a December 2016 deadline that both sides face to inform the other if they intend to opt out of the existing CBA after the 2016/17 season. An opt out from one side or the other has long been expected.
The sides will discuss how to split a flood of new revenue from the $24 billion TV deal the league struck with its media partners this fall, among other matters. Roberts has taken an aggressive tack since the union hired her last summer, with the latest bombshell having been the revelation that the union will apparently exercise its rarely used right to independently audit five teams this summer. Adam Silver, who’ll be in the role of commissioner during CBA talks for the first time, has raised the notion that the league would push for a hard salary cap, among other measures sure to meet with union resistance.
The goal for both sides would seemingly be to find a workable deal that would avert a lockout after the 2016/17 season. The last CBA negotiations, in 2011, forced the NBA to abbreviate the 2011/12 campaign, which started on Christmas Day 2011.