NBA Owners Budge On Hard Cap Demand

[key2win]

For the first time in two years of labor talks, NBA owners made a modest push from their rigid stance on implementing a hard salary cap. The owners proposed at Tuesday’s negotiating session an idea similar to the current system that allows teams to pay a luxury tax for going over the cap. Only, now there would be ultra-punitive measures against higher-spending teams. The current system has teams pay a dollar-for-dollar tax for exceeding the cap. Players Association executive director Billy Hunter has called the hard cap a “blood issue” for the union, and insisted the players would never agree to it. The owners’ proposal on Tuesday “would still have the affects of a hard cap,” one source with knowledge of the talks said.

This is a good step in the right direction. Tomorrow's meeting will be critical in order to save this coming NBA season so it can start on time.

NBA owners budge on hard cap demand - NBA - Yahoo! Sports

[bakemeister52]

I not sure that the players will buy the latest proposal!

[key2win]

From ESPN article about today's meetings.

David Stern is scheduled to meet with league owners Friday, with owners and players expected to end up in the same room for negotiations.

The owners did not offer players a finite annual team limit on salaries but are willing to relax their insistence on a hard cap only if certain conditions are met.

Those conditions include:

• The "Larry Bird exception," which allows teams to exceed the cap to retain their own free agents regardless of their other committed salaries, is limited to one player per team per season.

• The mid-level exception, which the league valued at $5.8 million last season and could be extended by as many as five years, is reduced in length and size.

• The current luxury tax, the $1-for-$1 penalty a team must pay to the league for the amount it exceeds the salary cap, is to be severely increased.

In last week's negotiating session, owners proposed that the players' share of basketball-related income (BRI) be sliced from 57 percent to 46 percent. Broussard reported Tuesday that the owners' BRI offer had increased to 48 percent.

Sources say that the owners also want a five percent reduction on all existing salaries for this season, a 7.5 percent reduction of all 2012-13 salaries and 10 percent reduction of 2013-14 salaries.

[bakemeister52]

The last two items on the list seem to be in favor of the owners too much.