NEW YORK - Labor talks between the NBA and the players’ union broke off Wednesday, increasing the chance of a lockout starting in the offseason.

In a statement, the NBA accused the union of backtracking on several items that the sides had agreed upon. The collective bargaining agreement expires June 30.

“Since we are at a loss as to how we can possibly reach a new deal that is in any way consistent with the principal terms that we have been discussing for many months, there are no further meetings scheduled at this time,” deputy commissioner Russ Granik said.

If no new agreement is reached, a lockout could begin as early as July 1 — three days after the draft.

The sides had been publicly optimistic over the prospects for reaching a new deal until last Friday, when commissioner David Stern downgraded his outlook to “hopeful.” That came just hours after two union attorneys gave a verbal outline of the union’s new offer and, according to the league, changed its position on several key issues.

“They’ve taken major steps backward on all the key elements,” Granik said in a telephone interview. “We still have more than six weeks until July 1, so I don’t want to predict what will or won’t happen, but based on way things have gone here it’s hard to see where an agreement will be reached any time soon.”

A lockout beginning July 1 would force the cancelation of summer leagues and offseason conditioning programs at team facilities. Training camps are scheduled to open in early October.

The league and union went through an acrimonious seven-month lockout in 1998 and 1999 before agreeing to the current seven-year agreement.

With very few exceptions, the same attorneys that negotiated the old agreement are working on the new one.

In its statement, the league indicated a belief that player agents had pressured union director Billy Hunter to back off some of the concessions he had agreed to in previous negotiating sessions since mid-February.

“At the conclusion of a bargaining session on Sunday, April 17, we thought we were very close to a deal, with only a few items remaining to be compromised,” Granik said. “On April 19, a day after the players association met with a group of player agents, we were informed that the players association could no longer agree to a previously committed five-year rule on length of contracts.

“Then, last week, after promising a written proposal to form the basis of a new agreement, the union instead advised us orally that it needed to backtrack on several other essential terms that had already been resolved.”

The league claims the union changed its position on the length of long-term contracts (current rules allow a maximum length of seven years), the size of annual raises in long-term contracts (current rules limit those increases to 12.5 percent annually for players who re-sign with their teams; 10 percent for players changing teams as free agents), and changes to the escrow and luxury tax systems designed to limit salary growth and penalize the highest-spending teams.

Granik also told the AP that the union had changed its stance on a proposed change to the age limit. He did not give specifics.

Hunter told ESPN.com he resented the league’s implication that a group of agents had pressured him to back off from his earlier offers.

“This was the same approach used by the league seven years ago,” Hunter said. “At that time, the word was that (agents) David Falk and Arn Tellem and others were actually orchestrating and managing the negotiations. I thought it was repugnant and offensive at that time, and I think it’s even more so now — the fact the inference is that me, as a black man, cannot operate an institution such as the union without having some white man oversee and (legitimize) whatever it is I’m supposed to be doing.”

Stern is seeking to have the minimum age for playing in the NBA raised to 20 (current rules mandate a U.S. player’s high school class must have graduated before he can become draft eligible, while foreign-born players must turn 18 before the draft). Hunter has said he is philosophically opposed to raising the minimum age, though he said he’d agree to a change if the league offered something substantial in return.

The league said it had offered to increase each team’s salary cap by raising the percentage upon which that calculation is based. Currently, the cap is computed by taking 48 percent of leaguewide revenues and dividing that figure by the number of teams, 30.

Granik said the league had offered to raise that percentage to 51.

The first sign that talks might be breaking down came when the league canceled plans for a bargaining session between a large group of owners and players that was to have taken place Tuesday. Granik said Thursday’s statement was issued to help explain the cancelation of that session.

“We felt we had to tell people what was really happening. It’s not like it serves a beneficial purpose,” Granik said. “I would prefer we not have to air this, but people were asking reasonable questions and we owed them a responsible answer.”

If a lockout is imposed and stretches into the fall, many arenas around the country that are home to basketball and hockey teams could go completely dark. The NHL still hasn’t settled its own lockout that started last September and wiped out the season — the first time a North American sports league lost a full playing year to labor strife.

© 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

 

With the NHL car wreck in front of them, i think its unlikely they they dont reach a deal.

 

Have they learned nothing from the NHL

 

soon there will only be MLB, NFL, and NASCAR

 

No surprise that this is the current state of negotiations. I'm sure everything will be settled in time.

What's the NHL?

 

These idiots get paid millions of dollars a year to put a ball through the hoops what is there to bitch about..I hate people sometimes..

 

NHL = No Hockey League

 

Such is the nature of unions and their employers

 

 

Whats NASCAR?

 

Go Habs Go!!

 

What is this NBA you speak of???

 

I hope all professional leagues go into labor disputes and cancel their seasons. Then, maybe, just maybe, these egotistical, arrogant, a$$hats that do little more than "entertain" the masses get a reality check and realize they are expendable.

 

NHLPA supposedly accepted the salary cap. I think they're sorting out the "definition" of revenues so that they can figure out how to divide them.

You can't blame the players. Why should the owners get all the money. The owners are richer than like 98% of the players. The players are the product anyways.

 

the funny part is they're not expendable.... unless the professional sport itself is expendable.

 

It's ok guys, we still have the MLS. That's all we need.

 

And when people who make a couple million dollars a year complain, I have little sympathy...

 

MISL > NASL > *

 

Here we go again....

It's not about the dollars they make compared to you and me, it's about the split of the revenues between the owners and players. The union has a job to do, and it has nothing to do with "complaining" about how much they make.

 

No

Bundesliga > Serie A > EPL > La Liga > *

 

Personally, I would lose very little sleep if all pro sports disappeared.

I'm not saying the owners should be making all the money, but both the players and owners make more than they should. It's the spectators' fault, though, since they are still buying the tickets, wearing the jerseys and lining the pockets of the league, owners and players.

A bit OT but, the thing I don't understand is how this county can still have all the budget problems with the amount of taxes these people must (should) be paying?

 

Um, tax cuts.... but thats for another forum.

the money is simply the result of the supply and demand in a market based economy that pays the salaries. The pro sports leagues are just like any other business that sells a product. Not much you can do except not contribute yourself

 

No
NFL > NASCAR > *
let the flame war begin

 

Again, it's hard for me to care. Unless they plan to do something useful with the extra portion of revenue they would take away from the owners, it doesn't benefit our society in any way.

 

Bundesliga > Formula 1 > NBA > Tour De France > Rugby > Nascar < Special Olympics

 

And all the money that every other business makes and pays their workers with goes to benefit society

don't be a they have a right to keep their revenue that they generate, and there will always be labor talks about how to split it up.

 

 

I'm not being a but I hate it when people with a lot of money whine and complain about getting more of it. If these guys were fighting to get a raise in the salaries of those people doing the menial tasks like maintaining the stadiums, courts, selling their merchandise in the gift shops, and selling tickets, then I might actually care.

 

Those guys aren't part of the union, and the negotiations are all about the union.