Commissioner David Stern gave NBA players an offer and a deadline: Accept a chance to earn up to 51 per cent of basketball-related income by Wednesday or get ready for a deal that’s a whole lot worse. He wouldn’t call it an ultimatum, but it didn’t sure sit well with the union.
“The players will not be intimidated,” attorney Jeffrey Kessler said early yesterday after eight hours of negotiations stretched late into the night. “They want to play, they want a season, but they are not going to sacrifice the future of all NBA players under these types of threats of intimidation. It’s not happening on Derek Fisher’s watch; it’s not happening on Billy Hunter’s watch; it’s not happening on the watch of this executive committee.”
Kessler said the proposal was really 50.2 per cent for the players, and called the chance of them ever reaching 51 per cent a ‘fraud’ and an ‘illusion’.
Fisher fears the entire NBA season will be lost.
