NEW YORK — Jonathan Schiller of the law firm Boies, Schiller & Flexner, which is representing NBA players in their legal fight with owners, said today in an e-mailed statement that there will be “preliminary settlement discussions with the NBA immediately after Thanksgiving with regard to the lawsuit filed recently by the players.”
Schiller and his partner were not even players in this drama two weeks ago, but the negotiation has changed ever since the union filed its disclaimer of interest. Now, there are two things to settle : The litigation from the lawsuits filed by both sides, and unresolved collective bargaining issues that caused everything to get to this juncture.
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I refuse to get excited after all the torture of the summer. But, on the plus side, lawyers are (slightly) less likely to let tempers flair and storm out of the room.
As for the 66-game season, I’m sure the NBA has a season worked out for every start day between now and Feb 1. Christmas Day is the aim, because it sounds nice. And if Stern grows his beard back, he can dress up in red suit and give out presents to the Mavericks.
Hopefully by Sunday night we are all complaining about how they could have done this over the summer.
They can’t talk “CBA” since there is no union. But in reality these are CBA talks. They’ll have a “legal settlement” that provides for the union to get back together and then approve a CBA under these lines.
So could these meetings be only about the law suits, and not about the CBA? I hope not.
It is about the CBA but they can’t call it that because technically there is no players union to collectively bargain with.