NBA Lockout Update

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.

“It’s not the greatest proposal in the world,” Hunter said. “But I have an obligation to at least present it to our membership. So that’s what we’re going to do.”

If the players take the deal, Stern and deputy commissioner Adam Silver said the league would open the season with a compressed free-agency period and training camp after an estimated 10 days to resolve a slew of what Hunter called ancillary items and then put the new labor accord in writing.

The playoffs and NBA Finals, under that plan, would have to start one week later than usual to accommodate the 72-game regular season.

“We don’t expect them to love every aspect of our revised proposal,” Stern conceded. “I would say that there are many teams that don’t like every aspect of our revised proposal.

“(But) we moved as far as we could and now we’re at where we’re at.”

The ominous response from one source connected to the NBPA, who expects the union to reject the proposal next week after learning of the tweaks offered by the league on the five or so “system” issues that have kept the parties at an impasse: “Nothing was addressed. It’s basically the same offer as it was before.

“No way this deal gets taken (by the players). They didn’t move on any system issues that concerned us. It’s still basically (like) a hard cap with very restrictive rules for player movement.”