After mulling the owner’s offer over the weekend, Billy Hunter and the NBA Players Association opted to reject the offer and decertify.
This is a poor decision for everyone. Sure, the NBA’s proposal was not perfect, but it was close enough. When we went into these negotiations, we KNEW that the players would lose money, we KNEW the players would lose on some system issues, we KNEW overall that the players would lose. But the NBAPA don’t seem to realize it.
All in all, the proposed deal actually preserves much of what the players wanted. Sure, the BRI split went lower than the 53% the players hoped for, but it didn’t go to the 40% that the owners originally proposed. The players were able to avoid a hard cap too! In all honesty, I don’t understand what was so draconian about the deal that made the players give up a whole season. That’s $2 billion dollars that they will NEVER see! I don’t care what the issues with the system are, they can’t be worth that!
Ultimately the players are hurt by rejecting this deal greatly. The groundwork was there, the deal was relatively fair, the players managed to hold true on many of their key issues; why didn’t this get done? That will be the haunting question as the players decertify and the lockout heads to the courts.
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