The NBA Players Association and league owners met for nearly three hours yesterday without coming close to a resolution. They agreed to sit down Friday as the union mulls the NBA’s latest counterproposal.
Sources said the Players Association delivered its new proposal after which the owners countered. For the first time, commissioner David Stern revealed the league has offered what he termed “a flexible cap,” as opposed to a hard cap.
However the union does not agree on Stern’s “flex” terminology, and the sides appear to be distant on that key issue. “We’re kind of running out of time,” Knicks guard Roger Mason said following yesterday’s Manhattan meeting. “We know the deadline is approaching and we’re doing the most we can to prevent a lockout. We’re still so far apart on the hard salary cap. As players, it’s something we don’t see as something we can do.”
The good news for the Knicks was that Stern mentioned the new cap figure offer could be $62 million, an increase over last year’s $58 million cap. That would seem to give the Knicks more spending room in 2012 to sign a free agent.
The Players Association is holding its annual meetings tomorrow in Manhattan where it will go over the league’s latest offer that Stern attempted to explain in greater detail than in the past.
“The atmosphere in the room today was a little different, but we’re a long, long way from a deal,” Players Association director Billy Hunter Jr. said.
Stern said one big element to the new proposal was guaranteeing compensation would be at least $2 billion for the entire 10-year deal and introduced the new “flex cap” term. Stern added he would not classify it as the final offer.
“We modified our cap proposal to something called a flex cap,” Stern said, “where there’s a targeted salary that teams can go above it and a minimum below it.”
Stern said the “flex cap” would allow a club to go past the threshold only by a limited amount, such as the mid-level exception or re-signing its own player. The “flex cap,” Stern said, differs from a hard cap that would contain no mid-level exception to spend on a free agent. The Knicks desperately need a mid-level exception this summer to sign a decent free agent.
Ron Klempner, attorney for the Players Association, discounted Stern’s wording. “I don’t know what a flex cap is,” Klempner told The Post. “As long as there is a target number, it’s a hard cap. I don’t see how it isn’t. It’s nomenclature.”
Stern indicated he doesn’t see the NBA going much further, saying the “cupboard is getting barer and barer,” and “We think this is virtually the best shot we think we have to demonstrate to the players our desire to go as far as we can to avoid a lockout. We think we demonstrated we’re here to try to make a deal. The players’ response was, ‘We’ll see you on Friday.’ ”
Players on hand included Chris Paul, who stands to lose freedom if the salary cap is too small for teams to pursue him, Tony Parker, Theo Ratliff, Sebastian Telfair, Al Horford, John Salmons, Zaza Pachulia and Mason, on the executive committee.
“We’re far apart,” Paul said. “They’re talking a hard cap but we’re going to keep talking, keep meeting, do what we have to do to get a deal done. As players, we want to play. The fans love watching and we love competing.”
Owners were represented by the Knicks’ James Dolan, the Suns’ Robert Sarver, the Lakers’ Jeanie Buss, the Magic’s Bob Vandeweghe, the Spurs’ Peter Holt and the Cavaliers’ Dan Gilbert.
