Collective Bargaining Agreement Rumors

Details On New Collective Bargaining Agreement

December 14th, 2016 at 9:42pm CST by ChrisCrouse

The NBA and the NBPA have agreed in principle to a new seven-year Collective Bargaining Agreement, according to a league press release. The league also announced that both parties have agreed to extend the mutual deadline to opt out of the current CBA from December 15, 2016 to January 13, 2017 in order to give both sides enough time to review the terms of the agreement and vote on them. Details of the agreement are trickling out. Here’s the latest:

9:42pm:

Luxury tax penalties will be “softened” for some teams and trade rules will be “liberalized,” according to Sports Illustrated. Free agency terms will become more favorable for players in general with fewer restrictions on first-round picks and a shorter moratorium.
A “comprehensive” program to deal with domestic violence, sexual assault and child abuse will be established. The program will offer resources for players and their families. It will also contain a defined process for investigations.

9:10pm:

In regards to the designated player rule for veteran extensions, only players who meet certain performance criteria, such as All-NBA team appearances, will be eligible for an extension, Zach Lowe of ESPN.com reports (Twitter links). Lowe adds that the first year of a players extension can be worth up to 35% of the salary cap regardless of whether the team has the cap room or not.
Teams will not be able to give a six-year extension to a player it just traded for, Tim Bontemps of The Washington Post relays (Twitter link).
The window for teams to match offers during restricted free agency will be reduced from three days to two days, Stein tweets.

8:00pm:

The 36-and-over rule, which removes the incentive for teams to sign players to long-term deals if their 36th birthday falls during the life of the deal, has been altered to a 38-and-under rule, sources tell Wojnarowski.

7:33pm:

The deal is for seven years, but contains an opt-out after the sixth season, David Aldridge of NBA.com tweets.
Minimum salaries will rise by about 45% beginning in the 2017/18 season, Scott Soshnick Of Bloomberg reports. The average player salary will also grow to $8.5MM, which is up from $5MM, and retired players are expected to get better benefits than in previous deals.
The split in BRI is expected to be roughly the same as it was in the previous CBA with the players receiving 51%, Soshnick adds.
Teams will be allowed to expand rosters by at least one and at most two players if additional players are sent to the D-League, Soshnick reports. These additional roster spots would be for the highly anticipated two-way contracts between the NBA and the D-League.
The players union will take control of group marketing rights, Soshnick adds.
The players union and the league will form a committee to decide how the NBA will use wearable technology and the data it produces, Soshnick relays.
Teams will now be able to choose a designated veteran for a lengthy new contract, similar to how teams can use the designation player rookie extensions, Marc Stein of ESPN.com tweets. Extensions could include up to six seasons once the player is entering the final year of his current deal.
The league will shorten the preseason to a maximum of six games and start the regular season a week sooner in an effort to spread out games, Adrian Wojnarowski of The Vertical reports (Twitter link).
The league will keep the one-and-done draft rule for now, but the players union and the league will continue to research the issue and possibly change the rule during the life of the new CBA, Wojnarowski adds (Twitter link). Neither side is committed to keeping the rule, but the parties decided to table the issue for now.

NBA, Players Union Reach Agreement On New CBA

December 14th, 2016 at 6:37pm CST by ChrisCrouse

6:37pm: The NBA and the NBPA have reached a tentative deal on a new CBA, pending ratification by players and team owners, the league announces via press release. Both parties have agreed to extend the mutual deadline to opt out of the current CBA from December 15, 2016 to January 13, 2017 in order to give both sides enough time to review the terms of the agreement and vote on them.

6:30pm: The two sides have reached an agreement in principle on a new seven-year CBA, Adrian Wojnarowski of The Vertical confirms (Twitter links). The two sides will jointly make an official announcement tonight.

6:20pm: The deal is complete and is pending ratification, Marc J. Spears of The Undefeated reports (ESPN Now links). The players are expected to vote on the deal next week.

6:04pm: An agreement in principle between the NBA and the NBA Players Association on a new labor deal could be reached as early as tonight, Marc Stein and Ian Begley of ESPN.com report. Stein adds (via Twitter) that both sides essentially view the deal as “done.”

The deadline for both sides to opt out of the current labor deal is Thursday at 11:59 p.m. ET and the negotiations conducted between the two sides this week have put them on course to reach an agreement before the deadline. One source told the ESPN scribes that the deal is expected “very soon,” which would squash any possibility of a lockout in the 2017 season.

It was previously reported that group licensing remained a barrier to a deal, but Stein and Begley hear that those issues have been resolved.

Both sides are expected to jointly announce a deal once it is finalized. A deal won’t become official until both league owners and active players vote to ratify it, but those votes are merely a formality.

Progress, Optimism Surround CBA Negotiations

December 13th, 2016 at 10:38pm CST by Arthur Hill

10:38pm: The NBA and the NBPA are meeting tonight at the league’s office and David Aldridge of NBA.com (Twitter link) reports that the group licencing issue will not hinder their ability to consummate a deal.

10:21am: With the deadline approaching, only one issue stands in the way of a new collective bargaining agreement, tweets Bloomberg’s Scott Soshnick. As talks wrapped up Monday night, a source told Soshnick that the owners and players were “98% there.”

The unresolved issue involves group licensing, according to Adrian Wojnarowski of The Vertical (Twitter link). “Still working at it, still close,” a source tells Wojnarowski (Twitter link). Both sides agree on the major points of the issue but are just “hashing out the language,” tweets Jon Krawczynski of The Associated Press.

Other major issues, such as retaining the current split of basketball-related income, have already been settled.

It’s the latest positive sign that a new CBA will be reached before 11:59 pm Thursday, which is the last moment that either side can opt out of the current deal. If someone does opt out, negotiators would have until June 30th to reach a new agreement before risking a lockout. The two sides also have the option of extending the deadline if a deal cannot be finalized in time.

TNT analyst David Aldridge also reported optimism Monday, hearing that more progress had been made (Twitter link). It’s a change in direction from Saturday, when Carmelo Anthony, a players association vice president, said he was skeptical that an agreement could be reached before the deadline.

And-Ones: RFAs, CBA, Magic, Rockets, A. Brown

December 12th, 2016 at 2:29pm CST by Luke Adams

Donatas Motiejunas‘ long restricted free agency saga is the latest example of the limitations the system imposes on players’ freedom and flexibility. However, while the league’s new Collective Bargaining Agreement is expected to include some small tweaks to that system, most people in the know don’t expect it to help RFAs significantly, writes David Aldridge of NBA.com. “Any changes made will be minimally helpful to players, at best,” one prominent agent tells Aldridge.

Let’s round up a few more odds and ends from around the NBA…

Speaking of that new Collective Bargaining Agreement, there’s still optimism that the NBA and the players’ union can work out a deal soon, despite Carmelo Anthony‘s skepticism. According to an Associated Press report, most major aspects of the deal have been addressed and agreed upon, so the two sides remain at odds over secondary issues. If they can’t strike a deal by Thursday, the December 15 opt-out deadline could be extended. If one side does opt out, the league and NBPA would still have until next July to work out a new agreement to avoid a lockout for 2017/18.
J. Michael of CSNMidAtlantic.com believes the Magic and Rockets could be logical trade partners at some point this season, since Houston’s roster is heavy on scorers and Orlando’s is heavy on defensive stoppers.
After being waived last week by the Pelicans, former Lakers second-rounder Anthony Brown has rejoined the Erie BayHawks (Twitter link via Chris Reichert of The Step Back). The BayHawks – Orlando’s D-League affiliate – held Brown’s NBADL rights before he signed with New Orleans.

Anthony ‘Skeptical’ Of New CBA Before Deadline

December 10th, 2016 at 8:59pm CST by Arthur Hill

8:59pm: Both sides remain confident that a deal can be reached, tweets Marc Stein of ESPN. Licensing and the use of player likenesses has become an important issue as the deadline approaches (Twitter link).

5:11pm: With the deadline for a new collective bargaining agreement less than a week away, Carmelo Anthony is throwing cold water on the optimism that has been surrounding negotiations, relays ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne.

“I’m skeptical of something getting done,” Anthony, who serves as vice president of the players association. “Do I think something could happen by the 15th? Yeah I think something could happen. But I think this kind of put a dent in conversations. We had something so close. We were supposed to have a deal done weeks ago, and for this to happen at the 25th hour is tough.”

Anthony refused to explain what happened to derail the agreement, but emphasized that “as players, we want to get a deal done.” He added that it would take “a miracle” to get a new deal finalized before Thursday’s deadline (Twitter link).

Negotiators have been trying to hammer out an agreement in advance of December 15th, which is the final date either side can opt out of the current CBA. Reports on the talks have been universally positive, and some observers had expected an agreement to be announced this week.

Anthony’s pessimism doesn’t mean hopes for a new deal are dead. The owners and players could simply agree to extend the deadline, tweets Howard Beck of Bleacher Report. TNT analyst David Aldridge reports that the sides are still talking, at least through Friday night (Twitter link). A league source on Friday was still optimistic that an agreement would be reached, even if an extension were necessary, according to Sam Amick of USA Today (Twitter link).

New CBA Will Benefit Role Players

December 7th, 2016 at 10:57pm CST by ChrisCrouse

Rockets co-player representative Patrick Beverley hears that the new collective bargaining agreement will be kinder to role players, Jonathan Feigen of The Houston Chronicle relays. The new agreement is expected to included a 50 percent increase for the veteran’s minimum salary and for cap exception deals.

“All due respect to all the superstars who are kind of the face of the league, me and [Trevor Ariza, the team’s other co-player representative] talked about the glue guys, the utility guys that you need on your team, make the team possible,” said Beverley. “We know we’re not out there scoring big points, but we do do other things that don’t show on the stat sheet from a business and financial standpoint, we’d like to be rewarded for those things.

“According to the players’ union, the new deal that is set in place helped the glue guys, the utility guys, the blue collar guys … to be able to benefit from this game also.”

In addition to the above changes, restricted free agents will be permitted to sign on the first day of free agency, according to Feigen. The waiting period for teams to match opposing offers on RFAs will be reduced from three to two days and teams will no longer be able to rescind qualifying offers.

Latest On Changes In New CBA

December 5th, 2016 at 12:58pm CST by ChrisCrouse

DECEMBER 5, 12:58pm: Stein has followed up on his earlier report on rookie extensions (noted below), tweeting today that he’s now hearing the timeline for those extensions are expected to remain unchanged in the new CBA — players on rookie contracts will likely still be eligible for new deals after their third season, rather than after their second season, according to Stein.

DECEMBER 3, 6:09pm: The NBA remains on track to announce its agreement with the National Basketball Players Association between now and December 15, Marc Stein of ESPN.com reports. That is the final date in which either side can opt out of the current CBA and commissioner Adam Silver has maintained that it always was the “real” deadline for a new deal.

Stein hears that the new agreement will feature several changes. It’s likely that the start of 2017/18 season will be moved up somewhere between 7-10 days in order to help reduce the number of back-to-backs teams face over the course of the year. The preseason is likely to be shortened with each team playing in a max of five or six exhibition games, which is down from the current eight game max. Opening night could then fall as early as mid-October.

Another looming change, according to Stein, is that the new deal will allow teams to sign first-round picks to extensions after the second year of their rookie deals. Currently, players are eligible for an extension after year three.

“One of the things we’re talking about, without being too specific in bargaining right now, is coming up with some additional opportunities for the incumbent team to retain the player, some advantages in terms of being able to negotiate earlier to extend the contract,” Silver recently said.

“I think if we ‘early up’ some of those opportunities, at least teams will be in a better position to know, one, whether they can keep that player. And if they can’t, there will be more of an opportunity to deal that player and get value for that player if it seems likely that player is going to leave.”

If this provision were to exist in the new agreement, then members of the 2015 draft class, such as Karl-Anthony Towns and Kristaps Porzingis, would be eligible for extensions this summer.

And-Ones: Labor Talks, Draft, D-League, McGrath

November 29th, 2016 at 9:01pm CST by Arthur Hill

The NBA’s $24 billion in television money has helped to preserve labor peace in the league, writes TNT’s David Aldridge. The TV contract, which runs through 2025, removed the financial incentive for either the owners or the players to force a work stoppage. The salary cap has nearly doubled over the past three years and the league just came off a summer of free agency with unprecedented levels of spending. Not only are player salaries rising, but so are the valuations of teams. Aldridge cites a recent Forbes Magazine article that estimates the value of all 30 teams at $1.25 billion, up 13 percent from a year ago. Both sides have the right to opt out of the current deal until December 15th, but all indications are that talks are going well and a new CBA will be announced soon.

There’s more basketball news tonight:

Kansas forward Josh Jackson remains on top of the list of top 100 draft prospects compiled by ESPN’s Chad Ford. He describes the 6’8″ freshman as a “super athletic wing” with a high basketball IQ. Rounding out Ford’s top five are Washington point guard Markelle Fultz, UCLA point guard Lonzo Ball, North Carolina State point guard Dennis Smith and Duke power forward Harry Giles.
Sioux Falls point guard Briante Weber is the most likely D-League player to get an NBA callup, according to Chris Reichert of Fansided. The 23-year-old is known for his energy and defense, although shooting remains an issue. Weber played six games with Memphis and one with Miami last season. The Heat waived Weber in the preseason, but promised to monitor his progress in the D-League.
Donnie McGrath of the Nets’ D-League affiliate in Long Island has turned down overseas offers to remain with the team, tweets international basketball writer David Pick. The 32-year-old has attracted interest from Spanish teams Fuenlabrada and Betis.

And-Ones: Acy, No-Trade Clauses, Trade Exceptions

November 27th, 2016 at 9:46pm CST by Arthur Hill

Quincy Acy, who was waived by the Mavericks last week, has entered the D-League player pool, tweets ESPN’s Marc Stein. With the top choice on the wavier wire, the L.A. D-Fenders will have the first chance to claim Acy, but Stein reports that Dallas’ affiliate, the Texas Legends, are trying to make a deal with L.A. to get his rights (Twitter link). The well-traveled forward has played with four NBA teams in four seasons.

There’s more basketball news tonight:

LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony and Dirk Nowitzki are the only players with no-trade clauses in their contracts, notes Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders, who adds that players who re-signed with their teams on one-year contracts also have the right to block deals. Pincus offers a preview of trade season, which unofficially begins December 15th when the first group of offseason signees is eligible to be moved. The player who currently has the longest wait before he can be traded is Pelicans guard Anthony Brown, who can’t be dealt until February 21st.
Five teams have active trade exceptions, Pincus notes in the same piece. The Cavaliers have three: $845,059 through January 12th, $9.6MM through February 18th and $1.3MM through August 15th. The others belong to the Hornets at $1.7MM expiring July 12th, the Clippers at $1.2MM expiring August 15th, the Bucks at $1.7MM expiring September 22nd and the Thunder at $7.4MM expiring November 1st.
As the owners and players put the finishing touches on a new collective bargaining agreement, there are three issues that both sides are trying to improve, writes salary cap expert Larry Coon of ESPN.com. The issues are making it harder for players to form superteams, creating more opportunities for restricted free agents and turning the D-League into more of a minor league feeder system.

And-Ones: D-League Salaries, Motiejunas, Wayns

November 25th, 2016 at 3:11pm CST by Luke Adams

In a recent report, ESPN’s Marc Stein indicated that D-League salaries were expected to rise to the $50-75K range when the NBA and NBPA finalized its new Collective Bargaining Agreement. However, in a column today, Stein clarifies that the $50-75K salary will likely only apply to two-way contracts, which are expected to be incorporated into the new CBA.

NBA rosters are expected to be expanded from 15 players to 17 or 18, with those two or three extra slots accommodating players on two-way contracts. Those deals would allow teams to carry multiple players that they shuttle back and forth between the NBA and the D-League, with those players earning money at different rates depending on which league they’re in. According to Stein, most other D-League players will still earn lower salaries — currently, D-League salaries range from $19-26K, and while that rate may increase going forward, the bump likely won’t be as substantial as initially believed.

It’s a disheartening development, according to Chris Reichert of The Step Back, who tweets that he had hoped two-way contracts would be worth in the neighborhood of $200-250K, with other D-League players earning $50-75K. The NBA’s new Collective Bargaining Agreement still hasn’t been finalized and announced, so we’ll have to wait to see exactly what changes it entails, but for now it doesn’t seem as if the D-League salary system will be overhauled significantly.

Here are a few more odds and ends from around the NBA:

Within the aforementioned piece, Stein discusses the Donatas Motiejunas situation again, citing one source close to the talks who believe the RFA forward isn’t far away from landing a contract. It’s not clear if that contract would be a new deal with the Rockets, an offer sheet from another NBA team, or an agreement with a team overseas.
Prior to Stein’s clarification on D-League salaries, former Vanderbilt standout Derrick Byars, who is currently playing in France, wrote in a guest post for Ridiculous Upside that increasing the league’s salaries to $50-75K would have been a “game-changer.” Meanwhile, Moke Hamilton of Basketball Insiders suggested that increased salaries could make the D-League a viable alternative to the NCAA for many prospects. While those pieces are still worth reading, it appears both of those points are now moot.
Former Sixers and Clippers guard Maalik Wayns is leaving Russian team Enisey and has agreed to terms with Israeli team Maccabi Rishon, reports international basketball journalist David Pick (via Twitter). Wayns, 25, last played in an NBA game in 2014.