NBA owners, players likely to meet next week

Sever player agents have urged union executive director Billy Hunter to decertify so the players can file an antitrust lawsuit against the league. (AP)

On Tuesday, Tom Ziller of SB Nation reported that the NBA players’ union and league officials were planning the first official post-lockout collective bargaining talks for some time in the first two weeks of August. That meeting will take place next week, barring some unforeseen scheduling issue, according to two sources familiar with the matter. It could take place as early as Monday, depending on how the schedules of a few key figures shake out, according to one of the sources.

Staff members from each side, including some top officials, have met twice since the lockout took effect on July 1 to finalize the 2010-11 basketball-related income figure, discuss possible structures for a new salary cap and schedule future meetings. But those sessions have not involved several key players, including NBA commissioner David Stern, union executive director Billy Hunter and top outside counsel for both sides.

Experts consider the two sides to be far apart in a dispute that centers on how the league should split revenues with players. Under the just-expired collective bargaining agreement, players were guaranteed 57 percent of all basketball-related income, and the league recently had to fork over $162 million in escrow funds and an additional $26 million to make sure player salaries for the 2010-11 hit that mark. League officials have claimed that the 57 percent figure is too high, and that 22 of the league’s 30 teams have lost money over the last two years as a result of player salaries and rising expenses. Just before the lockout went into effect, players offered to accept a shade more than 54 percent of BRI, but that was not enough of a compromise for the league and its owners.

The two sides are also at odds over a number of other key issues. Among them:

• The owners’ push for a hard salary cap

• The amount of guaranteed salary in player contracts

• What revenues should be included in BRI

• What costs should come out the BRI pie

The gap is large enough that several player agents encouraged Hunter on Friday to consider desertification, a bold move that would give the players the right to file a federal antitrust suit and challenge the legality of the lockout, according to Yahoo! Sports’ Adrian Wojnarowski and other sources. The union also has a pending unfair labor practices complaint in front of the National Labor Relations Board.