Talk’s over: Players must choose between playing or decertifying

On the 133rd day of the lockout, commissioner David Stern called the players’ bluff: Are you going to accept the new era for the NBA, or are you going to decertify?
It is now time for everyone at the table to show his cards.
Players finished 23 collective hours of negotiation Thursday with a final offer from the wholesale jerseys owners that Stern hoped would end the lockout with minimal damage to the season. On Monday or Tuesday, the union representatives from all 30 teams will meet to decide whether they should put this offer to the entire membership for a vote. Should the players accept, Stern said they will be able to salvage a 72-game season starting Dec. 15, with the playoffs and the NBA Finals starting one week later than normal.
The final offer comes amid a swelling movement among the players to pursue decertification. They had been hoping to force the owners to compromise in negotiations by threatening to take the union’s Cheap Basketball jerseys case to court. Union executive director Billy Hunter acknowledged this week that as many as 200 players were prepared to sign a petition that would send the union down a path of 45 days or longer to potential decertification. Now the players face a hard choice of gambling on the courts and the uncertain bargaining leverage of decertifying, or instead embracing the certainty of a proposal that Stern insists is the best deal they’ll ever see.
Union president Derek Fisher declined to assess the quality of the offer, other than to acknowledge it wasn’t good enough to earn his outright approval. Hunter said he was going to leave it up to the player representatives. “It’s not the greatest proposal in the world, but I have an obligation to at least present it to our membership,” said Hunter. “So that’s what we’re going to do.”
Stern might have found a hint of optimism in this ensuing observation from Hunter: “It’s been a long haul and we’re coming near the end of it.”
By agreeing to the terms that emerged from the most recent negotiations, the players will be giving up approximately 12 percent of their salary this year — the pro-rated cost of missing 10 games from the schedule. If they refuse this proposal, however, Stern says the league will revert to its more punitive offer of 47 percent of basketball related income to the players, along with a more restrictive system of contracts and free agency.
The players have expressed anger and resentment over lowering their share of BRI from 57 percent last season to a range centered around 50 percent in the current proposal. “I understand from the union’s standpoint it’s a difficult pill to swallow right now,” said deputy commissioner Adam Silver.
In exchange for surrendering close to $300 million annually, the union wanted the owners to capitulate on system issues that would maintain free agency and player movement at a level to which the players have grown accustomed. But the owners insisted that the luxury tax and other mechanisms needed to be strengthened in order to prevent rich teams from grossly outspending the smaller markets for talent.
The union was unable to negotiate significant movement from the owners on the system, in part because Stern’s owners have provided him with little or no room to compromise, as he hinted while acknowledging that many of his owners are unhappy with many aspects of their final proposal. And yet the latest round of negotiations spawned anonymous rumors that progress was being made, which one union source believed to be an effort by the NBA to reach out to the players in hope that creating expectations for an improved offer may entice the 450 players to demand that the proposal to be put to a membership vote. Adding to the conspiracy theory was a report put out Thursday afternoon — and then retracted — by former Knicks president Dave Checketts that the lockout had been resolved.

 

Broncos turn back the clock for Tebow, and it equals wins

As the Denver Broncos fine-tune the playbook to fit Tim Tebow’s style, they have become increasingly reliant cheap jerseys on the ground game.
With the approach, they’re off and running.
Banking on an unconventional option-style offense led by an unorthodox quarterback, Denver has suddenly surged back into contention in the mediocre AFC West. The Broncos (4-5) have won three of their last four Cheap nfl jerseys games with everyone pretty much knowing exactly what they are going to do — run and run some more.
“We’re trying to do what’s going to help us win and in my opinion that’s all part of coaching — putting players in position to utilize their abilities,” Broncos coach John Fox said.
However, their backfield took a hit Monday with word that backup tailback Knowshon Moreno will have season-ending ACL surgery on his right knee.
But leading rusher Willis McGahee (hamstring) is expected to return for the game Thursday night against the New York Jets (5-4) on NFL Network. As an insurance policy.
The more backs the better, especially with as much as the Broncos prefer to run the ball these days.
Of their 63 offensive plays Sunday in a 17-10 win over Kansas City, 55 were on the ground. Tebow did his part, too, running for 43 yards.
In an offense that’s being tweaked just for him. Tebow has become quite proficient at sticking the ball in a running back’s gut, surveying the defense and either taking it back out to hightail it around the end or allowing the back to continue through the line.
Just like the former Heisman Trophy winner did in college.
“Hey, as long as you’re moving the ball, possessing the ball, giving your defense some rest, it’s all good,” Fox said. “Run, pass, if they let you kick it down the field, I wouldn’t mind doing that either. As long as you’re moving the ball, that’s the key.”
It’s quite a contrast for the Jets.
“They’ve got a top-10 defense in the National Football League so they know what they’re doing,” Fox said. “It’s tough on this kind of turnaround, regardless of what you’re preparing for. It’ll be challenging for both of us.”

 

Dodgers near eight-year deal with Kemp

The Dodgers and outfielder Matt Kemp have reached a preliminary agreement on a franchise-record eight-year, $160 million contract extension pending the passing of a physical exam, according to a baseball source. The deal would be the biggest in franchise MLB jerseys history, eclipsing the seven-year, $105 million deal signed by right-hander Kevin Brown in 1998.
However, at a Dodgers Dream Foundation event Monday in Compton, Calif., Kemp was mum on the subject, unwilling to make anything official just yet. Kemp, a contender for the National League Most Valuable Player Award after winning a Rawlings NL Gold Glove Award and an NL Silver Slugger Award, just finished a two-year, $11.1 million deal. He is eligible for one more arbitration season before hitting free cheap jerseys agency.
“It is unbelievable to be in this position for myself and my family,” Kemp said of the proposed contract. “You dream about this. My dreams have definitely come true.” The Dodgers under general manager Ned Colletti have not given a contract beyond Juan Pierre’s five-year deal.
Colletti has said that locking up Kemp would be an offseason priority, and the center fielder has been the club’s focus, even though Andre Ethier also has one season of arbitration eligibility remaining before he’s able to be a free agent.
Signing Albert Pujols or Prince Fielder would add a new, huge salary, with the Dodgers already budgeting Kemp for a big raise as part of an anticipated 2012 payroll similar to the $110 million the club spent this past season. “I want other big-time free agents to consider L.A. as a team that they want to be a part of. I want to win as many games as we can and get to the World Series,” Kemp said. “It is a great city and a great organization to be a part of.”
Dave Stewart, Kemp’s agent and a former Dodger, has said he would advise his client to cut off negotiations if no deal is reached by the start of next season. Kemp, 27, batted .324 (third in the NL) with 39 home runs and 126 RBIs in 2011, leading the NL in homers, RBIs, runs scored (115) and total bases (353). The 2011 NL All-Star also finished among the league leaders in multihit games (57, tied for first), hits (195, second), slugging percentage (.586, second), extra-base hits (76, second), stolen bases (40, tied for second), on-base percentage (.399, fourth) and walks (74, tied for eighth).
“I still want to win the MVP,” Kemp said. “I put all that hard work in the training room and weight room for a 162-game season. The outcome is that you always want to be the best. Being thought of as one of the best makes you want to try harder the next year.”
Kemp became the seventh player in Major League history to finish the season ranked in the top three in homers, batting average, RBIs and stolen bases in his respective league, joining Hall of Famers Ty Cobb (1907, ’09-11), Honus Wagner (’08), George Sisler (’20), Chuck Klein (’32), Willie Mays (’55) and Hank Aaron (’63).

 

N.B.A. Season in Peril as Players Reject Offer

The union representing National Basketball Association players formally disbanded Monday and declared it would take its labor standoff with the league’s owners into federal court, a development that pushed the league as close as it has ever been to losing an entire season of play.
The players, no longer unionized, said they would file an antitrust lawsuit in the next two days and would seek a summary judgment declaring the league’s four-and-a-half -month lockout to be illegal. With negotiations wholesale jerseys effectively ended and legal proceedings about to intensify, a season that has already had six weeks of games canceled may never take place.
“We’re about to go into the nuclear winter of the N.B.A.,” Commissioner David Stern said darkly in an interview with ESPN.
The players’ Basketball jerseys decision came four days after Mr. Stern gave them an ultimatum — take the league’s current offer, or see it withdrawn and replaced by a deal that would be more onerous. The league, Stern said, was done negotiating.
Faced with what they felt were two unpalatable options, the players said they had no choice but to disband the union and to seek legal redress. They announced their decision after a three-hour meeting in Manhattan that involved more than 40 players, including the union representatives of all 30 teams.
“We’ve come to the conclusion today that that process has not worked for us,” said Derek Fisher, the union’s player president, who spoke with the other players packed tightly behind him. “It has not put us in a position to get and to negotiate the fair deal that we’ve been working to try and complete.”
Billy Hunter, the union’s executive director, called the union’s move the end of the collective bargaining process, which he said has “completely broken down.”
By disbanding, the National Basketball Players Association will now be converted into a trade association. It can negotiate with the league, but within limited parameters. For any new collective bargaining agreement to be approved by the players, the union would have to be reconstituted.
The players’ key leaders will now be two high-profile lawyers: Jeffrey Kessler, who had been serving as the union’s outside counsel and chief negotiator in the talks, and David Boies, who earlier this year represented the N.F.L. in its defense against an antitrust lawsuit by its players association.\
Mr. Hunter, meanwhile, will continue as the head of the trade association. He, Mr. Kessler and Mr. Boies can continue talks with the N.B.A. on a possible settlement while any lawsuits proceed — assuming negotiations resume at some point.