Four days after the latest impasse in talks between NBA owners and players and one day into what would have been the league’s regular-season schedule, two sources involved in the negotiations said there are no new meetings scheduled.
The two sides, according to one of the sources, spoke separately with federal mediator George Cohen about a possible reunion meeting this week, but the session will not take place. Cohen, to review, was the point man for three straight days of marathon negotiating sessions in mid-October that did not lead to resolution.
Yet while the overarching questions continue to surround the split of basketball-related income — the players want 52.5 percent while the owners last offered a 50-50 split — and system issues (discussed in detail here), the absence of two-way communication this week led to an increase in dramatics.
Miami Heat owner Micky Arison was fined $500,000 on Monday for his comments on Twitter that revealed a break in the ownership ranks. Then, union president Derek Fisher wrote a letter to players refuting a recent FoxSports.com column that claimed he was secretly negotiating with David Stern and pushing players to accept the 50-50 deal, in part, to curry favor with the commissioner for the future benefit of his post-playing career.
And on Tuesday, a Yahoo! report claiming union executive director Billy Hunter was behind the anti-Fisher column and detailing a divide in the union ranks surfaced. One union source, however, insisted that the perceived chaos within wasn’t as bad as it might seem.
“There’s been disagreement about how to negotiate or what moves to make, but there’s no fatal disagreement here,” the source said of the Hunter-Fisher dynamic.
SI
