NBA players and owners agree to terms on new CBA
Travis Marmon
Sports Editor
After 149 days and the decertification of the player’s union, it appears that the 2011-12 NBA season has been saved. Last Saturday, following a 15-hour bargaining session, the NBA’s team owners and players agreed to a handshake deal that will lead to a 66-game season starting on Christmas Day. A normal NBA season has 82 games.
The league made several concessions to the players on points that were contentious throughout the lockout. According to sheridanhoops.com, the new deal includes the following terms, among others:
1. The players will receive between 49 and 51 percent of revenue depending on annual growth, after initially complaining that the owners’ previous offer limited them to 50.2 percent of revenue.
2. Mid-level exception contracts (a rule allowing teams over the salary cap to sign one player to a league-average salary) will be four-year deals every season, rather than alternating between three and four years as before.
3. The rookie salary scale will stay the same as last season, despite owners asking for 12 percent cuts.
4. A $2.5 million exception will be given to teams that go below the salary cap, then use their cap room to sign free agents.
5. The prohibition on luxury tax-paying teams from doing sign-and-trade deals (when a team signs a free agent and immediately trades them away) was loosened, although not lifted.
6. The owners dropped the idea of the “Carmelo Anthony rule.” This rule would have prevented star players from leveraging their way out of unhappy situations and forcing their teams to trade them, which is the tactic Anthony used to get the Denver Nuggets to trade him to New York last season.
The new collective bargaining agreement is a 10-year deal. Both sides will have the option to opt out of it after six years.
In order for the deal to go through, the players must drop their lawsuit against the league and the union must recertify in order for the deal to be voted on. U.S. District Judge Patrick Schlitz granted the players’ request to issue a stay on court proceedings while the collective bargaining agreement is sorted out.
Players are optimistic that the deal will pass and the season will be underway. “I feel like I just got drafted again,” Oklahoma City Thunder forward James Harden told ESPN. “I’m just excited. It’s a sigh of relief and now it’s time to get to work.”
If the deal goes through, the start of training camp and the start of free agency will take place on Dec. 9. The regular season will begin on Dec. 25 with three games: Two Eastern Conference playoff teams in the Boston Celtics at the New York Knicks; the Eastern finalist Chicago Bulls at the Western semifinalist Los Angeles Lakers; and a Finals rematch of the Miami Heat at the Dallas Mavericks.
The last possible game of the NBA finals will be June 26, two weeks later than originally scheduled.