2017 Labor Negotiations Rumors | Hoops Rumors

Texas Notes: Parsons, Black, Cuban

October 7th, 2014 at 10:01pm CST by Charlie Adams

We’re just three weeks away from opening night in the NBA, when the Mavs will square off against the Spurs in a matchup between two teams from the Lone Star State. San Antonio might look like a preseason favorite to take home a second consecutive title, but a fantastic offseason in Dallas should mean the Mavs have a shot themselves at making some serious noise in the West. Let’s have a look at the latest out of Texas:

Earlier today, Marc Stein of ESPN.com rounded up the events that led to Chandler Parsons‘ departure from the Rockets this summer. The 25-year-old forward suited up against his former club tonight to kick off his career with the Mavs, but he said the game didn’t carry any extra meaning despite who he was facing, as Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle transcribes. “Just because it’s them, it’s a little different because I know those guys and it’s the first time we play against them,” said Parsons. “But at the end of the day, it’s a chance to see where we stand right now.”
Rockets coach Kevin McHale won’t rush to determine which players will fit into the club’s regular rotation, Feigen writes in a separate piece. Reserves Ish Smith, Jeff Adrien, and Tarik Black have been particularly impressive, Feigen hears. Black is the only member of the group on a non-guaranteed pact, and Houston is already carrying the league max of 15 guaranteed deals. However, his solid performance in camp might speak well of Black’s chances to make an NBA club, even if it’s not in Houston.
There have been rumblings that some superstar players might want maximum contracts taken out of the next CBA, and Mark Cuban suggests such an idea might not be out of the question if the players are willing to forfeit some guaranteed money and agree to allow contract structures similar to the ones found in the NFL. Tim MacMahon of ESPNDallas.com has all the details.

Latest On TV Deal: Paul, CBA, Durant

October 7th, 2014 at 5:29pm CST by Alex Lee

This morning, our own Chuck Myron outlined the number of players that inked deals this offseason that won’t allow them to immediately take advantage of the league’s new TV contracts in the summer of 2016. LeBron James, of course, is famously not among that group after signing a two-year deal with the Cavs. Chris Haynes of the Cleveland Plain Dealer profiles emerging super agent Rich Paul, the orchestrator of that deal, in a lengthy but worthwhile read. Paul also coordinated Eric Bledsoe‘s reconciliation with Phoenix last month, completing an offseason that has left others in the industry impressed, including James’ former agent Aaron Goodwin. “What Rich was able to do this summer was mighty impressive. The sky is the limit for him,” Goodwin tells Haynes.

Let’s take a look at some of the latest takes on the NBA’s new TV contracts:

Union executive director Michele Roberts told Bleacher Report’s Howard Beck before the league signed its new TV contracts that she saw it as a “safe bet” that the union will opt out of the CBA in 2017, adding that it would be “silly” to assume otherwise. The TV deal is game-changing on many levels, and Beck hears estimates that would set the salary cap as high as $84MM in 2016/17, with maximum salaries for veterans of 10 or more years climbing to $34MM at the back end of their deals. Still, it was no secret that there would be plenty of TV money even before the deals were struck, as Beck notes.
Kevin Durant weighed in on the league’s new TV deal on Tuesday, suggesting that the financial windfall is just the latest reason to abolish the maximum contract, writes Anthony Slater of the Oklahoman. “Look at it like this. Kobe Bryant brings in a lot of money to Los Angeles, that downtown area. People go to watch the Lakers. Clippers are getting up there, Chris Paul, Blake Griffin and those guys are bringing in a lot of money as well. Look at Cleveland, look at Miami when LeBron was there. These guys are worth more than what they are making because of the amount of money they bring to that area. That’s a conversation you can always have, but until it’s changes you never know what will happen to it,” he said.
The NBA’s new TV deals represent an 186 percent increase in price from the current one, writes ESPN’s Darren Rovell, who adds that it is the largest jump of any of the four major sports leagues. Rovell also examines why the NBA commanded such a price, citing the league’s international appeal and the commercial importance of watching sports live as primary reasons. Rovell also mentions that, as part of the deal, the networks gain the rights to collaborate with the NBA on a digital channel that could potentially be used to target a worldwide audience.

Chuck Myron contributed to this post.

Latest Takes On NBA’s New TV Contracts

October 6th, 2014 at 10:27pm CST by Charlie Adams

The NBA’s lucrative new television deal might actually lower the probability of a work stoppage in 2017, opines Salary Cap FAQ author Larry Coon (Insider link via ESPN.com). The owners shut down the league in 2011 because so many clubs found themselves in the red, and the league’s business model at the time was “unsustainable,” as Coon puts it. He suggests the latest TV deal might mean the owners are more willing to find a middle ground with the Player’s Association during seemingly imminent negotiations for a new CBA that would keep the NBA schedule at 82 games.

While Coon still says it’s still very likely the NBAPA opts to negotiate with the owners for a new CBA in 2017, he writes that the odds of a lockout halting regular season play are lower than they were in 2011. Nothing is set in stone yet, and a lot can still happen in the next two years, but Coon’s take on the 2017 labor negotiations is surely a refreshing one for fans around the Association. We’ll round up more on the TV deal below and highlight a few players’ reactions to the news..

Adam Silver wouldn’t say whether the new TV deal would ensure that every team is profitable, but if the league argues that teams are losing money during the next collective bargaining agreement negotiations, LeBron James says the union won’t buy that argument. “That won’t fly,” James told reporters, including Sam Amico of Fox Sports Ohio (Twitter link).
Nets guard Deron Williams says NBA players should prepare for another lockout in the wake of the league’s monstrous new TV deal, writes Stefan Bondy of the New York Daily News. “I think it’s going in pretty much the same direction as it was last time (lockout of 2011),” said Williams, who is the Nets’ union rep. “So I feel like we made a lot of concessions last time, and it’s going to be hard for us to do that again. With the new leadership we have and (former NBAPA president Billy Hunter) finally being out of the picture, which is a great thing, hopefully things will go better for us.”
Williams isn’t alone in his thinking, as Kings forward Carl Landry shared the same sentiment as his fellow union rep, according to Jason Jones of the Sacramento Bee. “We’re excited and we’re preparing ourselves for a possible lockout again,” said Landry, “Anything is possible, but that (television deal) definitely helps us out.”

Zach Links contributed to this post.

Categories:
2017 Labor Negotiations

Fallout From NBA’s New TV Contracts

October 6th, 2014 at 4:56pm CST by Chuck Myron

The NBA’s new TV contracts will have broad effects on the league in the years to come, and commissioner Adam Silver addressed some of those in a press conference today. Other reports have also spoken to the scope of the media package, including its impact on the next collective bargaining agreement negotiations in 2017, and we’ll pass them along here, with the latest update on top:

4:56pm update:

James denied the earlier report (below) that he and Paul are attempting to do away with max contracts, as Joe Vardon of the Northeast Ohio Media Group relays.

4:06pm update:

Each team will receive between $70MM and $100MM annually thanks to the new TV deal, according to early projections, tweets Marc Stein of ESPN.com. Teams are set to see $35MM each of the next two seasons, the final years under the existing deal, Stein adds (on Twitter).

12:30pm update:

The TV deal guarantees the players will receive 51% of the league’s basketball-related income starting with the 2016/17 season, Beck notes (Twitter links). The collective bargaining agreement holds that the players will receive that percentage if revenue exceeds the projections made when the league and the players negotiated the CBA in 2011, at which time no one forecast quite so much TV money.

11:07am update:

It doesn’t appear as though there will be a significant jump in the cap for the 2015/16 season, Bontemps hears (Twitter link). It’s more likely that a phasing in of cap increases would limit the amount of the cap for 2016/17 and backload the rises into later years, as Bontemps adds in a second tweet.
Silver has ruled out making 2015/16 part of a phase-in, Bleacher Report’s Howard Beck tweets.

10:30am update:

Some team executives are estimating the new TV revenue would allow the cap to rise to as much as $91.2MM for 2016/17, reports Ken Berger of CBSSports.com. Max contracts for veterans of 10 or more years would start at $28.2MM under that structure, up from $20.6444MM this year, Berger adds. The CBSSports.com columnist also notes that a “vocal component” among the field of NBA agents has long been pushing for the elimination of max salaries, just as LeBron reportedly is, as we passed along below.

10:01am update:

Silver acknowledged the idea of gradually phasing in the dramatic leap in the salary cap that the new TV money will prompt, citing what the National Football League has done as a precedent, as Tim Bontemps of the New York Post notes (via Twitter). The commissioner added that he’ll meet today with players association executive director Michele Roberts about the idea, Bontemps also tweets. Still, Silver suggested that the discussion isn’t too far along, as Grantland’s Zach Lowe observes (Twitter link). It’s unclear if gradual increases would mean a higher cap for next summer than there otherwise would be, a lower cap for 2016 than there otherwise would be, or both.
LeBron James is pushing for drastic increases to or the elimination of the maximum salary for players in the next collective bargaining agreement, tweets Brian Windhorst of ESPN.com. The presence of Chris Paul, a friend of LeBron’s, as president of the players association could prompt the union to make it a point in negotiations come 2017, when both sides can opt out of the existing CBA, Windhorst adds. As it stands, veterans of 10 or more years are in line to see their maxes go up by more than $6MM come the summer of 2016, with vets of seven or more years in line for $4MM+ increases, according to Windhorst’s projections (Twitter link).
The new TV deal won’t kick in until after the current deal expires in the summer of 2016, but Silver said today that he was “determined” to finish negotiations before the season began, USA Today’s Jeff Zillgitt tweets.
David Stern confided in owners during the last years of his tenure that he expected the new TV deal would double in value, tweets Chris Mannix of SI.com, who notes that Stern’s estimate wound up low.

Atlantic Notes: Pierce, Lockout, ‘Melo, Johnson

October 6th, 2014 at 4:16pm CST by Chuck Myron

Paul Pierce originally thought he’d wind up re-signing with the Nets, but he tells TNT’s David Aldridge that Brooklyn never made an offer, as Aldridge writes in his Morning Tip column for NBA.com. Pierce said the Clippers looked like Plan B, but the Nets wouldn’t accommodate a sign-and-trade once Doc Rivers used the team’s mid-level exception on Spencer Hawes instead.

“You know what, I didn’t know what to expect,” Pierce said. “Brooklyn’s been, or New Jersey, Brooklyn, they’re a franchise that’s going in a different direction, I think. They said they wanted to cut costs; they felt like they weren’t going to be a contender. Right now, they’re kind of in the middle right now. And I really didn’t want to be in the middle. I didn’t know if they wanted to do a sign-and-trade. I had to make my own destiny. I couldn’t put it in the faith of somebody else. And that’s when I was like, I’m coming here [to the Wizards].”

The reference to New Jersey seems like a subtle twist of the knife on Pierce’s part, given the desire of Nets brass to establish the Brooklyn monicker, as Stefan Bondy of the New York Daily News points out. Here’s more from around the Atlantic.

Nets union representative Deron Williams believes the league and the players are on a path toward a work stoppage in 2017, noting that preparing for one was the focus of a union meeting in July, as he told reporters, including Bondy, who writes in a separate piece.
Carmelo Anthony said today that he had no interest this summer in signing a two-year deal, as LeBron James and others did, to take advantage of the influx of TV revenues, notes Chris Herring of The Wall Street Journal (Twitter link).
The Celtics had hoped to find a way to keep Chris Johnson amid the flurry of transactions surrounding the Keith Bogans trade, notes A. Sherrod Blakely of CSNNE.com. The Sixers claimed him off waivers after the C’s let him go.

Lowe’s Latest: Lockout, TV Deal, Salary Cap

October 6th, 2014 at 12:10pm CST by Chuck Myron

We’re keeping track of today’s latest on the league’s landmark TV deal in the post linked here, but the latest dispatch from Grantland’s Zach Lowe contains enough news that it makes sense to highlight it by itself. The entire piece is worth reading if you want to wrap your head around the true, broad-reaching effects of the influx of new cash, but we’ll hit the most noteworthy parts here:

Commissioner Adam Silver has begun trying to convince owners not to lock out players in 2017, Lowe reports. Former commish David Stern didn’t have a tight grip on a new wave of more financially motivated owners around the league, but that same group likes Silver, according to Lowe. Still, players are “furious” about the increase in league revenues not long after the latest collective bargaining agreement reduced the players’ share of revenues from 57% to 50% when it took effect, Lowe writes.
In 2011, the union proposed allowing players to receive a cut when an NBA team is sold, but the league quickly torpedoed the idea and would rather have engaged in an even lengthier lockout than concede on that issue, as Lowe details.
The plan for now is for ABC/ESPN and Time Warner to pay a combined $2.1 billion in 2016/17, with gradual yearly raises that bring the rights fees to $3.1 billion in 2024/25, the final year of the deal, sources tell Lowe.
Executives from some teams have advanced the idea of inserting extra money into existing player contracts that cover seasons in which the league will be receiving the new TV revenue, Lowe also hears.
The league would like to have a plan for phasing in increases to the salary cap and an update to the existing $66.5MM cap projection for 2015/16 ready by the end of the Board of Governors meeting later this month, Lowe reports. Still, the Grantland scribe believes that such a deadline will be difficult to meet.

NBA, TV Partners Sign $24 Billion Deal

October 6th, 2014 at 9:05am CST by Chuck Myron

9:05am: Commissioner Adam Silver also confirmed the arrangement in a press conference streamed via NBA.com, and the NBA has released a statement, too.

MONDAY, 8:40am: ABC/ESPN and Turner Sports, the subsidiary of Time Warner, have confirmed the deal in separate releases that detail their TV coverage plans. The NBA has a press conference scheduled shortly to discuss the new TV package.

SUNDAY, 10:30pm: One reason this NBA TV deal has such a high price tag is that by doing it prior to the existing agreements ending, it prevented FOX and NBC from making a play to secure broadcast rights, Tim Bontemps of The New York Post tweets.

9:36pm: The NBA and its television partners have agreed to a new nine-year deal, report Ben Cohen and Shalini Ramachandran of The Wall Street Journal report in a subscription-only piece. The combined annual rights fees that ABC/ESPN and Time Warner will pay surge from approximately $930MM to around $2.66 billion, tweets Richard Sandomir of The New York Times, making the full value of the arrangement $24 billion, as Sandomir notes in a full story. The deal kicks in for 2016/17 and runs through 2024/25.

The move had been expected, as John Lombardo and John Ourand of Sports Business Daily reported last month, though the fee is larger than the roughly $2 billion annual figure that seemed likely at the time. The increase appears to put the league in position to raise the salary cap even higher than anticipated, and in September some teams were already projecting that the cap, at $63.065MM this season, would leap to $80MM by the 2016/17 season, according to Grantland’s Zach Lowe. It’s unclear whether the league will phase in any such jump beginning with next season’s cap, or if the TV rights deal is backloaded, possibilities that Lowe heard had been in play.

The agreement also stands to affect the market value of franchises, particularly with at least part of the Nets on the market, as well as the league’s labor negotiations. The NBA and the players union each have an opt-out clause in the summer of 2017, and it seemed highly likely even before the TV deal that one or both sides would elect to get out of the existing CBA.

Lowe’s Latest: Salary Cap, TV Deal, Burks, Morris

September 16th, 2014 at 10:45am CST by Chuck Myron

Teams around the league are projecting that the salary cap will leap to as high as $80MM for 2016/17, as Grantland’s Zach Lowe writes, but next season’s salary cap is shrouded in uncertainty. Executives from around the league believed earlier this summer that the NBA would gradually phase in the increase in the salary cap with a larger than usual uptick next summer, but the league has told teams within the last two weeks to hold steady on their projections for 2015/16, according to Lowe. The uncertainty makes it more difficult for teams to make long-term commitments at this point as the October 31st deadline for rookie scale extensions looms. The focus of the Grantland scribe’s piece is on that rookie scale extension market, and his entire piece is worth a read to juxtapose his insight with our in-depth pieces on some of the same up-and-comers featured in our Extension Candidate Series. Lowe also has a few more newsy tidbits, as we’ll pass along here:

There’s chatter around the league suggesting that the NBA will backload its new television deal, which is expected to be more than twice as lucrative as the current arrangement that runs out after the 2015/16 season, Lowe reports. The aim would be for the league to negotiate the ability to keep a larger percentage of that media rights revenue for itself in the next collective bargaining agreement with the players union.
Executive around the league see Alec Burks as a sixth man rather than a starter, according to Lowe, who argues that there’s a case to be made to the contrary. Still, it bodes well for the Jazz‘s leverage in extension talks.
Markieff Morris and Marcus Morris told teams before the 2011 draft that they would take less money to play together, sources tell Lowe. That didn’t end up happening right away, since Houston drafted Marcus and Phoenix took Markieff, but the Suns reunited the twins at the 2013 trade deadline, and if their desire to stick together still holds true, that gives the Suns the ability to exert some pressure, Lowe surmises. Both are extension-eligible.

Union Urges Players To Spread Out 2016/17 Pay

July 1st, 2014 at 11:49am CST by Chuck Myron

The union is advising free agents to structure their new contracts so they’ll receive their paychecks for the 2016/17 season over 18 months to keep money coming during a possible work stoppage, reports Scott Soshnick of Bloomberg News (Twitter link). A memo the union sent to its members cites the continued revenue that league received from networks during the last lockout in urging the players to keep their own income flowing, tweets Sam Amick of USA Today.

Such an altered payment schedule wouldn’t have an effect on team salary calculations. The maneuver is unavailable to players who’ve already signed deals through the 2016/17 season, Amick notes (on Twitter). It’s also unavailable to those who sign minimum-salary contracts for that season, as fellow USA Today scribe Jeff Zillgitt points out (Twitter link).

The league and the players have a mutual option to terminate the collective bargaining agreement in 2017. A report from March indicated that NBA executives and agents alike feared one or both sides would opt out and a lockout would follow. The NBA has endured lockouts on multiple occasions, but only two, in 1999 and during the last labor negotiations in 2011, have resulted in the loss of regular season games. Progress between the league and the union is seemingly at a standstill as the union continues to search for an executive director to replace Billy Hunter, who was ousted at the All-Star break in 2013.

Fallout From Ballmer’s Deal To Buy Clippers

May 30th, 2014 at 8:56am CST by Chuck Myron

Steve Ballmer’s $2 billion bid for the Clippers is set to smash the record sales price for an NBA team, set just two weeks ago when the NBA approved the $550MM sale of the Bucks. The deal faces hurdles, including the NBA’s official OK, but the former Microsoft CEO seems ready to take the helm.

“I love basketball,” Ballmer said in a statement, as ESPN.com notes. “And I intend to do everything in my power to ensure that the Clippers continue to win — and win big — in Los Angeles. L.A. is one of the world’s great cities — a city that embraces inclusiveness, in exactly the same way that the NBA and I embrace inclusiveness. I am confident that the Clippers will in the coming years become an even bigger part of the community.”

Here’s more in the wake of the deal between Ballmer and Shelly Sterling:

Bobby Samini, one of many attorneys for Donald Sterling, insisted Thursday afternoon to Andrea Chang of the Los Angeles Times that there will be no sale without a signature from the banned Clippers owner. That’s despite a ruling from mental health experts that Donald Sterling is incapacitated, which transfers power over the Clippers to Shelly Sterling according to the rules of the Sterling family trust.
All involved with the sale are bracing for a legal challenge from Donald Sterling, but they’re confident the deal will come to fruition, tweets Ramona Shelburne of ESPNLosAngeles.com.
The arrangement would give Ballmer 100% ownership of the team, but he agreed to let Shelly Sterling continue to associate with the franchise in some capacity other than ownership, ESPN.com reports.
The Sterlings will have to pay $662MM in capital gains taxes on the sale, accountant Robert Raiola tells ESPN.com for the same piece.
The deal drew a thumbs-up from some Clippers players, including Blake Griffin, who spoke to Broderick Turner of the Los Angeles Times. “I think it’s a great move for us,” Griffin said. “I think it’s putting the final piece to the puzzle together. It kind of allows everybody to go back to focusing on the real goal, and that’s putting 100% of everything into winning a championship for Los Angeles from our side.”
Other players around the league, including Ty Lawson and Andrew Bogut, took to Twitter to marvel at the $2 billion price tag and express misgivings about the NBA’s assertion during 2011 collective bargaining agreement talks that teams were losing money (hat tip to Grantland’s Zach Lowe).
The NBA has wanted Ballmer as an owner since the SuperSonics left Seattle, so the league probably sees this deal as a win, observes Gary Washburn of the Boston Globe (on Twitter). It’s probably a loss for Seattle, tweets Ailene Voisin of The Sacramento Bee, as Ballmer was the primary financial backer of last year’s bid for the Kings. Ballmer has said he wouldn’t move the Clippers out of Los Angeles.