As result of yesterday’s meeting, there was no deal. According to David Stern, the NBA is done negotiating so it reads as if they have presented the players with their best offer. The players will meet early next week to discuss the offer. During last night’s presser, Stern said that if a deal is done soon, a 72-game season can begin on December 15.
In what was widely presumed to be the league’s last and best proposal in a labor standoff now into its fifth month, NBA commissioner David Stern on Thursday offered his locked-out players a 72-game season that would start Dec. 15.
Yet the league’s latest pitch, according to sources briefed on its contents after adjustments were made Thursday night, contained what the union regards as miniscule financial inducements for the players after nearly 24 hours of negotiations this week.
And that clearly disappointed union leaders who were expecting more after they made a commitment earlier in the week, for the first time since the lockout began, to accept a 50/50 split of annual Basketball Related Income.
NBPA executive director Billy Hunter struggled to mask how underwhelmed he was by the new proposal even as he was telling reporters that he would present it to the player representatives from all 30 teams as early as Monday as a possible prelude to a full vote from the union’s estimated 450 members.
Source: ESPN.com
