NEW YORK — The sides have been together today for more than 10 hours — unless you subtract the time when Billy Hunter and several players took a short stroll outside to get dinner — and there could be a strong push to get this thing across the finish line tonight, unless it backfires.
Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports is reporting that after finishing a call with the owners’ labor relations committee, commissioner David Stern will deliver a revised offer to the union tonight.
Also, Ken Berger of CBSSports reports the owners have moved on one of the five major system issues, signalling a willingness to raise the so-called “mini mid-level” to three years starting at $3 million for teams above the luxury-tax level, to be available every other year. Owners had previously proposed limiting taxpaying teams to a two-year mini mid-level worth $5 million.
Berger’s report also said there was a new hurdle over when teams would face the new restrictions for taxpaying teams. Owners are pushing for teams under the tax at the time of the transaction to be restricted from using the full mid-level — four-year deals starting at $5 million — if the signing put the team over the tax. In that case, the team would be restricted to use of the mini mid-level. Union negotiators want the new restrictions to be based on where a team’s payroll sits in relation to the tax prior to the use of the exception — not where it stands afterward.