Stern may be not as optimistic about CBA negotiations

[Kori Ellis]

Spurs notebook: Bowen, Duncan make top defensive team
Web Posted: 05/13/2005 01:00 AM CDT
http://www.mysanantonio.com/sports/b...26be285fa.html

Bruce Bowen and Tim Duncan were selected to the NBA's All-Defensive first team Thursday, the second time the Spurs have had two players receive the honor.

Bowen, runner-up for Defensive Player of the Year, received 23 first-place votes, matching Detroit center Ben Wallace for the most. Duncan received 16 first-place votes.

Minnesota's Kevin Garnett and Washington's Larry Hughes were the other two first-team selections.

The league's head coaches voted on the teams.

The only other time the Spurs have had two players named to the first team was the 1994-95 season when David Robinson and Dennis Rodman were selected.

"It's a great honor," said Bowen, who had made the second team four consecutive years prior to last season. "It's something that you can look back on and see what I have accomplished as a player. It's a reward for defense, even though it's only coaches who really, really, appreciate it.

"Some people don't look at it as much of a big deal, but I know it's very important."

Manu Ginobili received nine votes. Tony Parker picked up five, including a pair of first-team votes.

Parker "takes a lot of pride in it and does a good job on other point guards," Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said. "It's paid off for both (Parker and Ginobili). I'm hoping they will continue to be recognized for that."

Stern 'hopeful': NBA Commissioner David Stern uttered the first discouraging words heard about the league's collective bargaining talks with its players' union since vowing at the All-Star Game there would be labor peace by the end of the regular season.

Stern said there had been no progress in recent talks and he was prepared to "downgrade" his outlook from optimistic to "hopeful."

"See me in a week," Stern said when asked about the prospects for a settlement before the playoffs end.

League and union negotiators have a session scheduled for Tuesday in New York.

"I would say I have been optimistic we would have made a deal by the end of the regular season" Stern said. "We're still talking, but if we don't have any news to give you about progress by the end of next week I'm downgrading my optimistic to only hopeful. But we continue to talk and we'll see what happens."

If there is no agreement by July 1, when the collective bargaining agreement now in place expires, Stern said "we all know what happens in sports when you don't have a new collective bargaining agreement."

Presumably, that means a lockout by the league.

Tough talk: Much like Ginobili was in Denver, Bowen was booed nearly every time he touched the ball Thursday.

Bowen has heard worse. When he was with Miami, the Heat played New York in the playoffs. Bowen was jeered as he walked the streets of Manhattan.

"I heard some foul things coming my way," Bowen said. "You would swear I did something to somebody's family member the way they were talking to me. And this was on the street and not at the arena."

Thanks for the memories: Brent Barry played the previous five seasons in Seattle, but he doesn't plan to spend too much time this week reminiscing.

"I enjoyed the opportunity to get a chance to play and enjoyed the city and the people here," Barry said. "There's a lot of memories outside of the game that I hold dear about being here in the Northwest, but it's really not about those things at this point. I'm just trying to play and get through the series."

[Obstructed_View]

Don't try to tell me ESPN wasn't spoon fed that question by the league. Mark Jones didn't just pull that one out of his ass. Stern's threat couldn't have been more thinly veiled. It sounded like finger pointing and pre-emptive justification for a lockout to me and I don't see how that helps anybody.

I don't like the idea of millionaires arguing over how to divide money generated by tickets and merchandise that I can no longer afford. They will probably lose me as a fan if they have another labor dispute. It's not like I don't have other things to do.

[Kori Ellis]

Hunter again comes out against age limit
Associated Press

NEW YORK -- After a collective bargaining session ended Thursday without a written proposal changing hands, the head of the NBA players' union said he remains unconvinced of the need to raise the minimum age.

Union director Billy Hunter made his comments in an interview with The Associated Press following a small meeting at league headquarters at which union attorneys verbally outlined the players' new proposal. Hunter did not attend.

Hunter would not say whether an age limit was brought up, but he again said he'd only yield ground on the issue if the union receives something substantial in return.

"I'm flexible on anything if it makes economic sense and improves the overall conditions for my cons uents," Hunter said, adding that he believes a majority of current players are opposed to raising the minimum age.

Commissioner David Stern wants to raise the minimum age to 20. Currently, it is 18 for foreign-born players and 17 or 18 for Americans (In order to be eligible for the draft, a U.S. player's high school class must have graduated).

"I'm still strongly philosophically opposed to it, and I can't understand why people think one is needed except for the fact that the NBA is viewed as a predominantly black sport," Hunter said. "You don't see that outcry in other sports, and the arguments that have been in support of an age limit have been defeated."

The current labor agreement expires June 30, and the sides have been meeting regularly for the past 2½ months negotiating a new deal.

Another bargaining session is scheduled for Tuesday in New York, with several owners and players expected to attend.

"The negotiations are friendly. We know what the issues are. We just haven't been able to make the trades, I think, that are necessary to make a final deal," Stern said in Seattle prior to Game 3 of the Spurs-SuperSonics series. "We've been trading proposals. It's just that the proposals aren't closing any gaps."

"I'm downgrading my 'optimistic' to only 'hopeful,' " Stern said.



Neither side has been forthcoming with details of what has been proposed, though the most important issues are known to include the maximum length of player contracts, the size of annual percentage increases in multiyear contracts, and the so-called "trigger" percentages -- relating to revenue percentages devoted to player salaries -- that activate the luxury tax on the highest-spending owners and the escrow tax under which 10 percent of players' salaries are withheld.

Hunter said based upon his conversations with individual owners, he did not believe an age limit is a "must-have" issue for the league. Nor, he said, would the union let the issue scuttle what would otherwise be a fair agreement.

"It's not going to be a dealbreaker either way," Hunter said.

NBA spokesman Brian Flinn said the league had no comment on Thursday's bargaining session.

At a playoff game in Miami earlier this week, Stern argued in favor of an age limit by saying he wants the league's scouts and general managers out of high school gyms.

"Their presence there is unseemly in my view," Stern said.

Another argument often cited by Stern is that too many young urban Americans are looking at the NBA as a viable avenue -- which it often is not -- to financial security for their families and a quick path to s om for themselves.

Last year, eight high school seniors were among the first 19 draft picks, including overall No. 1 choice Dwight Howard, and two of the last three winners of the NBA's Rookie of the Year award (LeBron James and Amare Stoudemire) were drafted straight out of high school.

At this year's All-Star game, there were seven players -- Kevin Garnett, Tracy McGrady, Kobe Bryant, Jermaine O'Neal, Rashard Lewis, Stoudemire and James -- who made the jump directly from the preps to the pros.

O'Neal has been one of the most vocal opponents of raising the minimum age, which hasn't changed in the three decades since Spencer Haywood successfully challenged the NBA's old age limit rules in court. Hunter said he had not spoken to Haywood about the age limit issue.

[Obstructed_View]

The age limit is a bargaining chip. The union doesn't give a crap about it. The existing players would rather have a 37 year old vet on the end of the bench instead of an 18 year old. I'm not sure why the NBA wants it so bad but I think it has to do with college basketball somehow, but it's too late for me to try to think about it. They should just put in a rule saying if you draft a guy under the age of 20 and he doesn't get any PT you don't have to pay him. That way the fans don't have to pay inflated ticket prices to pay a guy that hasn't finished puberty yet that will sign a free-agent contract with another team once he's worth a crap anyway.