Here is David Stern's communique to his players, on the morning of the first work stoppage in National Basketball Association history: Don Nelson can negotiate his millions, unfettered by luxury taxes, caps and lockouts, but you can't. Have a great holiday weekend.
The NBA's commissioner and benevolent dictator said he tried, really tried, to avoid a summer shutdown that could eventually drag his upscale sport into the gutter baseball now tries to crawl out of.Michael Jordan and the gang of unholy agents gave him no choice. They submarined the deal the league agreed to with representatives of the players union. Not his fault.
Go ahead, blame Jordan and his co-conspirators for leading the Mutiny of the Multimillionaires. But just remember it was Stern and the owners who took the first hard-line position, long before the Jordanaires began their union decertification process.
The owners wanted to lock out last November, and would have had the players not blinked and agreed to a contract moratorium. The owners would have ruined what was a rousing NBA season. The players saved them by giving in.
That bought time, but it was running out and Stern was again threatening a lockout. He did the deal with the union representatives while wielding that hammer. Then the players found their own.
"Everyone said the players had no stomach for a fight, that they couldn't be reached," said Jordan's agent, David Falk. "Well, we reached them in three days."
The agents told them this was the worst way to negotiate, that there was no leverage for the players when there ought to be leverage. When the league is bigger and richer than ever.
When Pat Riley can sneer at the Knicks' offer of $15 million because he knows someone will offer more, without having to pay a luxury tax. That's the players' basic principle.