NBA Lockout: New Jersey Nets, Philadelphia 76ers Tell Team Employees to Report
After four grueling months of negotiations, the NBA lockout is finally nearing its end, with low-level employees of the New Jersey Nets and the Philadelphia 76ers, of all people, sounding the clarion call.
According to Deadspin, staffers from the Nets' ticket office and the Sixers' team office have been told to "Be Ready" and have "all hands on deck" by Monday, signaling that the NBA will likely to be back to business as usual just before the calendar turns to November.
The lockout, now in its 120th day, has quickly turned from a bitter stalemate into a fragile cooperative effort within the last few days.
The NBA owners and players resumed negotiations on Wednesday and have continued intensely since then after talks brokered by federal mediator George Cohen broke down last week.
The two sides returned to the negotiating table after commissioner David Stern and the owners relented on their demand that union chief Billy Hunter and the players agree to a 50/50 split of basketball-related income (BRI) before any further talks took place.
The players and the owners have spent most of the time between Wednesday and Friday working out other system issues—revenue sharing, the luxury tax, the mid-level exception, draft eligibility and an amnesty clause, to name a few—before returning to the all-consuming issue of BRI. ESPN reported this morning that the two parties are not all that far apart on the revenue split, with the players having expressed a willingness to cut their share down to 52 percent from the 57 percent they enjoyed under the previous collective bargaining agreement.
A swift end to the lockout would be a boon to basketball-hungry fans and team employees, from vendors to security personnel to ticket takers and beyond. An agreement would also allow the NBA and its players to build on the league's peak success from last season rather than forcing all parties to start over from scratch as they did after the lockout that shortened the 1998-99 season.
But before anyone starts dancing and dribbling in the street, we'll just have to wait and see if Stern and Hunter shake hands in front of the camera, allowing those employees in New Jersey and Philly to return to some sense of normalcy next week.
