If the cancellation of the first two weeks of the season last week wasn’t ominous enough, NBA commissioner David Stern yesterday added another helping of gloom and doom yesterday when he predicted there would be no basketball on Christmas if a labor deal is not struck by Tuesday when both sides in the dispute will sit with a federal mediator.
The federal mediation session precedes owners meetings in the city on Wednesday and Thursday.
“If we don’t make a deal by the time the owners are in, then what’s the purpose of us sitting around staring at each other on the same issues,” Stern said during a half-hour interview on WFAN with Mike Francesa.
“Tuesday is a really big deal,” he added. “Right now, Tuesday, Tuesday, Tuesday, just before my owners come into town, having brought in the labor relations committee and Billy [Players Association executive director Hunter] having brought in his executive committee, it’s time to make the deal. If we don’t make it on Tuesday, my gut — this is not in my official capacity of canceling games — but my gut is that we won’t be playing on Christmas Day.”
The NBA traditionally plays a triple-header on Christmas Day, showcasing its high attraction teams. This season’s original schedule had the Celtics and Knicks playing at Madsion Square Garden.
Stern — speaking on the radio show one day after Hunter — expressed his hope that the mediator, George Cohen, director of the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service and the same man who tried to settle the NFL labor dispute, can influence the talks and perhaps lead both sides to a new deal.
“I’m hoping he does because I think that if we don’t make a deal by the time my owners meetings come in Wednesday and Thursday after we’ve met with the mediator on Monday and then met with each other on Tuesday, then I despair,” Stern said. “Because we would have lost two weeks for sure on our way to losing more games. Offers will get worse, possibly on both sides and the deal is going to slip away from us as may the season.”
Stern cancelled the first two weeks of the season, from Nov. 1-14, after two lengthy sessions failed to bring a resolution. Now, he obviously sees more games in jeopardy. Stern said there are many issues that have yet to even be discussed, and pointed to what he sees as the major sticking points: Contract lengths and a luxury tax which he admitted is purposely highly “punitive” in order “to keep the teams from using the tax to give an advantage” to big-market teams.
“If a team is a taxpayer we don’t think that they should be able to go out and spend an additional $5 million to take away someone else’s free agent. The union does,” Stern said.
So they go to a mediator.
“Deal Tuesday or we potentially spiral into situations where the worsening offers on both sides make it even harder for the parties to make a deal,” Stern said.