tweet4EmailPrintAfter Billy Hunter made the grand stand of marching out of Friday’s bargaining session, refusing to negotiate below 52 percent of the NBA’s revenue split, there emerged a strong movement within the Players Association that’s vows the union will never let him act so unilaterally again.

From superstars to midlevel players to rookies, there’s an unmistakable push to complete the final elements of the system and take this labor deal to the union’s 400-plus membership. Beyond that, there’s an even larger movement to push Hunter, the Players Association’s executive director, out the door once these labor talks are done. All hell’s broken loose within the union, and no one is exactly sure how they’re going to get a deal to the finish line.

More From Adrian WojnarowskiFisher denies trying to cut side deal with NBA Oct 31, 2011 NBA fines Heat owner $500,000 Oct 31, 2011
Union executive director Billy Hunter has continued to seek no worse than a 52 percent revenue split for the players.

(AP)
“Billy can’t just say it’s 52 or nothing, and walk out again,” one league source involved the talks told Yahoo! Sports. “That will not happen again. It’s time that the players get to make a decision on this, and there won’t be another check lost before they do.”

Rest assured, there’s a vast gulf in the union, and it’s growing with the passing of every day. Players Association president Derek Fisher’s(notes) letter to the players convinced no one otherwise. NBA commissioner David Stern and the owners know it, and it’s part of the reason they won’t raise their offer of the BRI revenue split to 51 percent. There are system issues that need to be resolved for players, but this deal gets done at 50-50, and that’s been true for a long, long time.

In the end, there are two courses for the union: Take the deal largely on the table or blow this up, decertify and lose the season fighting the NBA in the federal courts.

Only, it’s too late to decertify. Everyone wanted to do it back in July when the lockout started, and Hunter refused. His decision had nothing to do with legal strategy, nothing to do with leverage or getting the best possible deal for the players. It had everything to do with what it always does with Hunter: self-preservation. He worried about losing power, losing his job, and he sold everyone on a toothless National Labor Relations Board claim that’s going nowhere.

[Related: Derek Fisher denies trying to cut side deal with NBA]

This union is threatening to implode, the push and pull of people wanting to cut a deal and those willing to keep warring over the final percentage points. Within the NBPA, the frustration with Hunter is this: Hunter knows where the deal will be made, but he’s engaged in a smear campaign to frame Fisher as a sellout to the league. For Hunter, the end game is simple: Divide and conquer, and ultimately try keep his own job beyond this labor agreement. This is a lousy deal for the players, and Hunter wants the blame everywhere else.

Yes, this has created doubts about Fisher, but it’s hurt Hunter far more. Once, he had the stars on his side, and that’s rapidly dissipating.

Hunter wants everyone to believe he’s the last holdout on going to a 50-50 split, that everyone else – especially Fisher – is dragging him there. Suddenly, he’s the tough guy standing alone. Suddenly, everyone else is caving and cutting side deals. Once it was the agents who wanted Hunter out. Now, there are star players lining up for a piece of him. They won’t move until there’s a deal done, but when they do, it will be swift, unruly and unpleasant.

“Right now, everyone has to choose sides: Billy or Derek,” one player involved in the labor process told Yahoo! Sports. “How the [expletive] did it come to this?”

For starters, it comes from an unseemly brew of hubris, ego and insecurity. On every level, this has been a disgrace, an embarrassment for the players, and it’s threatening to unravel the entire union. Most of all, the clock’s ticking on getting a deal done. November’s been slashed in the NBA regular season, and December’s on deck.

Stern is holding back the hawkish owners who want to pull the 50 percent offer off the table. The hardline owners are indeed pushing Stern to drop the league’s offer back under 50 percent as games are missed, but as one high-ranking official said: “The others realize that if you do that, you will lose a season. If the players will not take 50 now, they will not take less than 50 until they sit the whole year.”

[Related: Heat owner socked with $500K fine for lockout tweets]

If there’s one more round of games cancelations, owners are privately threatening what Stern publicly promised: a worse offer. That’s why a deal needs to get done sooner than later. From inside and outside, the union is teetering.

Players Association president Derek Fisher has denied he tried to cut a side deal with NBA officials without Hunter knowing.

(AP)
And if Fisher has talked privately with league negotiators – Stern, deputy commissioner Adam Silver, San Antonio Spurs owner Peter Holt – here’s the thing: So what? He’s the president of the Players Association, and ultimately, Hunter works for the players.

If Fisher didn’t tell his peers on the executive committee, that’s a mistake. If he didn’t tell Hunter, that’s probably a mistake, too. Yet, it’s clear trust broke down between them sometime ago, and make no mistake, that’s on the both of them. Yet Fisher’s job is to cut the best possible deal for the players, and pretending the owners will climb to 52 percent – even 51 – as players lose checks is irresponsible. To go down to 50-50 doesn’t make you in the pocket of the NBA or corrupted. There’s far more support for a deal there than Hunter wants everyone to believe, and that includes among the league’s elite players.

The bigger issues are the motives of Hunter and his one-man wrecking crew of a PR consultant, David Cummings. Even the people suspicious of Fisher inside and outside the union – those who don’t necessarily love him – believe that he’s worked relentlessly with the lawyers, economists and players to do the job right. He hasn’t mailed it in; just the opposite. This doesn’t make him successful in the job, because its results oriented – just like his career as a player. There are a lot of reasons for a bad deal, and most go back to Hunter’s refusal to decertify and gain some leverage with the owners.

Nevertheless, the end game of the players’ deal doesn’t make Fisher corrupt, on the take or a sellout of his peers. Only, Fisher knows in his heart what has happened, and maybe someday an agenda could come clear. Not now, though. Not with Hunter and his minions running this kind of low-rent garbage.

For now, Billy Hunter has the clearest agenda here: self-preservation. This job is too public now, too scrutinized to think smoke and mirrors can save you. Those days are done, and probably so is he.

To take on the NBA – Stern, Silver, the owners, the lawyers, the PR machine – everyone needs to be pulling the same way, with the same goals. As the union fought for its survival, so has Billy Hunter. Only, he’s been chasing his own, and he’s going to lose that fight, too.

Sooner than later, these labor talks need to get out of Fisher’s and Hunter’s hands, and into those of the rank and file. Whatever the civil war, the Players Association still belongs to the players. They should take it back, and take it back now.

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_ylt=As8IK7Sp9i0LGKXE7.WlDXO8vLYF?slug=aw-wojnarowski_nba_lockout_billy_hunter_110111

Hunter is coming from the mindset that the players spent decades working and fighting for what they have now, and in the blink of an eye, the players are expected to give a big chunk of it back. He's probably looking ahead and thinking if they give away all that the owners want now, without any pain on the owners side and few games lost, whats to stop them demaning another huge chunk in 6 or 8 or 10 years time, if they know the players won't put up any fight.

Of course, they may end up having to agree to an even worse deal and miss a season's pay by making that stand. I'd really hate to be Billy Hunter now, but I think that article goes a bit overboard- and also why can't the journalists put equal pressure on the owners to just offer 51% and let everyone save face?

Nalod wrote:

Maybe because they started at 53-47% and logical to meet in the middle?

yes, but Stern was at 50-50, said he would be willing to move on the economics, Hunter negotiated the system issues thinking he'd get 52%, then when it was time for Stern's move he suddenly said he was back at 47 and the move was going back to 50%! Shameless, but clever! I think Hunter felt like he'd been tricked and thats why he walked. Also there's reports that by "50%" the owners were actually wanting to deduct a few hundred million in extra costs first, so in actual fact the 50% was actually 47% anyway.

If the league is at 47%, pretending it's 50, then I understand a bit more why the players couldn't accept (it would be almost a 20% pay cut!). Still, there's confusion as to whether they dropped the extra expenses or not, so who knows where they're at now!

Nalod wrote:
As My good friend Nix and I have so discussed in lenght, its all about leverage and gots it.

Whose "winning" or "Losing" at this point does not matter until the fans got the games back.

I don't blame one or the other, it just does not matter.

It apparently does matter to some extent or else there wouldn't be so many articles and threads. Sure in the end none of this will really matter except in the minds of the players who if they feel screwed in this deal there will be less cooperation when the owners are looking for a player to take one for the team or help out to make a deal go thru. And certainly the next CBA they can expect the players to go straight to decertification and play hardball all the way.

ItalianStallion wrote:

smackeddog wrote:Hunter is coming from the mindset that the players spent decades working and fighting for what they have now, and in the blink of an eye, the players are expected to give a big chunk of it back. He's probably looking ahead and thinking if they give away all that the owners want now, without any pain on the owners side and few games lost, whats to stop them demeaning another huge chunk in 6 or 8 or 10 years time, if they know the players won't put up any fight.

It won't happen UNLESS the league is still losing a ton of money.

People have to stop thinking in terms of who is giving up what and who is getting what etc..

The goal is to give a "well managed" small market team a chance to be profitable and have at least some chance to win it all for their fans. If the deal accomplishes that and still leaves the players enough freedom to move around and get rewarded for their skill and effort etc... it should get done.

The old numbers and rules don't work.

Teams being profitable is a cyclical thing that mostly has to do with having a Star talent, winning team or just a huge and supportive market! The league had previous splits at 53% and made money even in small markets! Teams like SA and SAC had winning teams so they weren't complaining and went along with the last CBA which was just in 2005. Since then we had a recession and a lot of teams just don't have compelling teams on the floor. Teams cut salaries which is why they owed the players. They just didn't generate revenue in a lot of small markets and some teams over spent. Owners should've left the system alone in 2005. The numbers would've worked out under the previous system.

I think the two sides are farther apart than a lot of people would like to believe. The BRI split and the system are intertwined — the higher the split, the more restrictive the system has to be, and vice-versa.

The reason the last negotiating session ended so abruptly is because the sides negotiated on system issues, coming close to an agreement on a system that would allow the players to go to 50% on the split. But then the league said they couldn’t do that system with a 50% split — they backed their offer on the split back down to 47%. This is what David Aldridge said about it on NBA.com:

This is what the union’s executive director Billy Hunter meant Friday afternoon when he said the league “moved” back to 47. Those were the choices the league laid out to the union in Friday’s disheartening session, according to numerous sources. Fifty-fifty with almost nothing for the tax threshold-breakers, or 53-47 for the league with the negotiations the two sides had worked out all week.

In addition, Derek Fisher made comments about not being sure whether the owners were at 50 or 47, and Hunter talked about being “snookered.” It’s also why the sides didn’t finish-off the agreement after supposedly being so close. It’s because they’re not so close after all.

The league is offering 50%, but only when attached to a very restrictive system — a system that is unacceptable to the players.

I think if there really was an offer on the table that provided a 50% split with a system the sides had negotiated — including acceptable compromises on the remaining system issues — the players would take it. It might be work on Hunter’s & Fisher’s part to sell it to some of their hard-line constituents, but I’m betting it would get done.

The problem is, that offer isn’t on the table.

The season is doomed...