Many agents don’t see reason for the union to opt out of the collective bargaining agreement in 2017, in part because of the influx of billions of dollars in new revenue and in part because the league would try to negotiate a deal worse for players than the one they’d be opting out of, Bleacher Report’s Howard Beck details. Some sources indicate to Beck that as many as a dozen teams are losing money. Both the owners and the union have the right to opt out of the agreement, but an increasing number of people on both sides believe a pitched battle over labor issues won’t take place, Beck hears. The league projects that the average salary by 2016/17 will be $7.5MM, a 44% increase from 2010/11, Beck writes in the same story.
Here’s more from around the league:
- The National Basketball Players Association is studying ways to use the $57,298,826 shortfall coming their way from the owners as a result of the failure of 2014/15 salaries to add up to the required percentage of basketball related income, reports Ken Berger of CBSSports.com. The union will discuss using part of it to fund health care costs for retired players and decide how to divvy up the rest among active players, as Berger details.
- The union will distribute among affected players a $5.3MM settlement in a lawsuit against the state of Tennessee over its “jock tax” that requires players on visiting teams going against the Grizzlies to fork over sums to the state, Berger adds in the same piece. The tax, which ends after this season, had perhaps its most profound effect on players who signed 10-day contracts, and the Tennessee legislature used data from our 10-Day Contract Tracker as it considered the tax’s eventual repeal.
- Nuggets team president Josh Kroenke discussed Ty Lawson in the wake of the point guard being dealt to the Rockets, Marc J. Spears of Yahoo! Sports relays. “We did our best to try to help Ty. I’m excited to see he is embracing the first step of the process to get better,” Kroenke said. “I hope this is a good thing for Ty the person. There is no guarantees. Sometimes you need to hear it from a different person. With Jameer Nelson and Emmanuel Mudiay we’re excited about the future. We’re excited to turn the page and move on even if the [trade] value wasn’t equal,” Kroenke continued. “There wasn’t a lot of teams [interested]. Houston was in a position where it could put them over the top. We’re fully aware of that.“
- The two guaranteed years in No. 33 pick Jordan Mickey‘s four-year, $5MM contract with the Celtics are worth a combined $2.4MM, reports Steve Bulpett of the Boston Herald.
Chuck Myron contributed to this post.
I’ll more or less split the difference here. I think there will be an opt out and a work stoppage, but I think it will be very brief, and I don’t see games getting canceled.
Beck’s report is certainly promising, given the pessimism surrounding the NBA this past season about a potential labor stoppage down the road. Certainly the big money being thrown around — and the even bigger money that will be thrown around next summer — makes it more unlikely that the players will opt out. It will tough for the owners to cry poor with that kind of TV money pouring in.