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 Stern gave them an ultimatum — take the league’s current offer, or see it withdrawn and replaced by a deal that would be more onerous.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.
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