Early on Friday, it was reported that the NBA Player's Union sent a Collective Bargaining Agreement counterproposal to the NBA's front office.
The NBA has been waiting on a new proposal since the All-Star weekend last year. The proposal was delivered on Thursday for the NBA to mull over.
The new CBA calls for recent cutbacks like reducing the length and amounts of contracts. It also stated that it wanted to reduce players' shares of basketball-related incomes, as they are receiving somewhere around 57% right now.
The Union's executive director, Billy Hunter, said in a statement, "It's going to be incumbent on the owners to try to convince us of the urgency of getting a deal between now and July 1. And the way they started, they made a false start and so what they did was they kind of set things back a bit."The CBA that's intact right now is set to expire after the season ends in 2011. Although they are making progress on the agreement, they are still very much far apart from their negotiations. David Stern and the Player's Union will meet in a couple of days to discuss what the salary cap should be, even though it is slightly lower than last year's salary cap.
David Stern said on Friday that the league could lose anywhere up to $400 million with the new CBA. The union has since disputed it, saying that there is no way the NBA would lose that much money. Owners haven't seemed to care about the contracts they have been giving out, as mediocre players such as Drew Gooden, Darko Milicic, and Amir Johnson have all received contracts that many consider "too high".
There could very well be a lockout in 2011 if they don't reach an agreement with one another. Not only would it hurt the NBA, but it would hurt the players, too. I would hate to see that because I love the NBA and would not want to see that happen like it did to the NHL in the mid-2000's. Yes, they are still very far apart in their negotiations, but I think they can get it done before the current CBA expires.
