Jones on NBA: Finally back to the hardwood

Just when it looked like the NBA season was about to go up in smoke, commissioner David Stern and head of the NBA players trade union or whatever they wish to be called right now, Billy Hunter, donned firefighting gear.

You could say the unions move dissolve itself and start court proceedings was simply a negotiating ploy, but hey, it worked. Thanks to a tentative agreement that still has to be ratified by the masses on both sides, it looks like the NBA season will begin on Dec. 25.

So what happened? Who gave in and had a change of heart?

Well, neither side really. With pressure mounting in this high stakes game of chicken, and billions of dollars set to literally be lost, the combatants agreed enough was enough. Both sides stepped back and realized that their positions and beliefs were not bigger than the business and they could have thrown away a lot of cash by being stubborn.

Oh sure there were some concessions made on both sides when you look at the deal but in essence, there was a compromise. It’s what often happens in collective bargaining in many walks of life where both sides walk away thinking it’s not what I want but I can live with it. Let’s get back to work and more important, start making money and getting paid again. Will the respective sides vote the deal down? I highly doubt it as it seems to be influenced by how the deal is presented. This agreement, unlike others for the last two-plus years, and more specifically, the last 149 days will be looked at and presented in a favourable light.

So it sounds like a 66-game season will commence with a Christmas Day tripleheader and while it won’t be as crazy as the 50-game schedule that was played during the last lockout-shortened season in 1999, there will still be lots of games played in a much shorter time period. The start day is significant because Christmas Day is when you can turn on your TV and watch a game without payment for a cable package of some sort and that is just one of the business reasons, some feel brought each side to its senses.

But as late as Saturday afternoon, with the deal having been announced in the wee hours of the night before, some player reps had not been contacted. Billy Hunter did eventually send a memo to the players outlining that players could receive up to 51.2 perrcent of the hotly-debated Basketball Related Income (BRI). In reading the memo, Hunter noted where owners had dropped or amended their demands as he presented it in a favourable light, see I told you so.

So is this deal going to ensure competitive balance? Maybe, but as much as ownership waves that flag, it’s a team’s decision-making combined with a bit of luck that really makes the difference. For now, we’ll take a wait-and-see approach since some of the more punitive measures of the deal for potential big spenders don’t kick in for a bit. We should have at least six years of labour peace, and maybe 10 if the deal runs its full course unobstructed, and even though the deal hasn’t been voted or written yet, loopholes are already starting to arise that may benefit some of the big boys. I can see you chuckling, competitive balance huh?

So who won? The owners of course, they always do. They didn’t get a hard cap. Or did they? By clawing back somewhere in the neighbourhood of $250-300 million from the players and reducing the BRI by 6 percent and possibly up to 8 percent while maintaining the escrow with penalizing tax measures kicking in after the first two seasons, I’d say that limits spending and pretty much acts like a much harder cap than before.

Law suits will be dropped, the union will be reinstated and now we can finally get back to debating elements of the game itself. Finally, we can start talking about hoops and again and not economics.