New players rep fires a few shots across the NBA's bow

NEW YORK - About 10 months ago, new NBA commissioner Adam Silver made the overly optimistic statement that he had "no expectation" that the National Basketball Players Association would opt out of the 10-year collective bargaining agreement the two parties agreed to in 2011.

"I think it's premature, frankly, for either side to be making determinations about how well this deal has or hasn't worked," Silver said last April, "and I think especially given that [the NBPA] leader hasn't even been installed yet, which is something that they, of course, are freely acknowledging.

"So I don't really buy into sort of the speculation that they're already planning to opt out or that we're thinking about it."

In July 2014, the NBPA hired Michele A. Roberts, an attorney from the prestigious New York firm Skadden Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, to replace Billy Hunter as executive director.

In October, the NBA extended a television rights deal with ESPN and Turner Sports that will start in 2016-17 and be worth $24 billion for 9 years.

Those were two major changes to the status quo, and if the tenor of some of Roberts' comments during an NBPA media session at All-Star weekend is an indication, an opt-out is all but guaranteed.

Considering players' contract money is linked to total basketball-related revenue, it is estimated the new television deal could boost the salary cap from its current $63 million to around $90 million in the 2016-17 season.

Needless to say, the NBA is not keen on such a massive and immediate escalation in player salaries and proposed a "smoothing concept" that would create an artificial cap that would gradually increase salaries over a period of time.

Roberts had barely turned on her microphone before that idea was rejected.

"Player salaries will simply not increase as high as they would increase if there's no smoothing," Roberts said. "What might have been a $24 million contract becomes $21 million. What might have been an $18 million contract is now a $14 million contract.

"We spent quite a bit of time as a management team trying to evaluate the smoothing proposal. The bottom line was the shelf life of players, and there is a concern about any proposal that results in limiting the players' ability to realize as much income as they can. The proposal that the league submitted would artificially deflate the salary cap, and, therefore, player salaries would not increase as high as they would otherwise.

"That pretty much killed it."

Cleveland Cavaliers star LeBron James joined the NBPA leadership panel as vice president under president Chris Paul, of the Los Angeles Clippers.

When James re-signed with Cleveland last summer, he took a 2-year deal, which would make him a free agent, coinciding with the expected salary-cap increase from the new television contract.

Having James now in an executive position to help with negotiations is another sign that an opt-out from the players only 4 years into the agreement is imminent.

"We have always wanted to have players of influence included in our executive committee," Roberts said of James, answering with a tone of experience in the job she does not yet have. "It gets your attention."

Sure, but your and my attention are not what Roberts and the NBPA need to be concerned with. We're not going to negotiate control of $24 billion with her.

Roberts need be concerned only with getting the attention of Silver and NBA Board of Governors (the owners) and, frankly, she has already done that by swinging a 2-by-4 at them.

In November, Roberts implied that NBA owners were expendable and that there would be "no money, if not for the players."

In the most simplistic logic, that might be true, but the day players start paying expenses instead of just picking up checks is the day they can start ridiculing the owners who invest the money that makes a multibillion-dollar industry operate.

Forbes magazine says James and Kevin Durant will make more than $50 million each in 2015 because of basketball and related endorsements.

Twenty NBA owners have a net worth of $1 billion or more. Most NBA owners are so wealthy, they consider their teams as little more than showpieces. Unlike players, losing basketball would not greatly affect their livelihoods.

Also during All-Star weekend, Roberts reiterated she has no interest in discussing Silver's desire to raise the minimum age limit from 1 year removed from high school to 2 years.

"Be happy with one-and-done," Roberts said. "It's not going to be two-and-done."

One would assume these remarks are just part of early negotiating tactics, but, regardless of which side of that debate you are on, Roberts appears to have directed some unnecessarily hostilities toward the league before she and Silver have even had time to warm the chairs in their new roles.

Perhaps the players just want to deliver the message that they prepared to play hardball when new collective bargaining agreement negotiations start.

But when everything is combative from the get-go, it makes reaching common ground more difficult, and, considering the way things have started, the only thing as sure as an opt-out is that it will soon be followed by a work stoppage, either by a players' strike or an owners' lockout.

Columns: ph.ly/Smallwood