CBA Framework Established, More Work to Do

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Published: November 26, 2011

Details will follow over the course of the next few days, and this thing can be derailed by a number of factors, but a CBA framework has been established.

This means the BRI split and major system issues have been agreed upon by the negotiators. The lawyers, antitrust folks, etc. weren’t in on this.

This framework seems to be based on the pre-disclaimer 50-50 deal. It is a 51-49 band.

A 66-game season starting on Christmas is the target. My guess is this is a season with 4 games vs division opponents and 2 games against everyone else. Free Agency and Training Camp are targeted to begin on Friday, December 9th . . . two weeks from now. The opening day games from the original schedule will be played on Christmas.

This is positive, but this is also a tactic. There were actual negotiations happening in these talks, so some of these details haven’t been spread through the respective communities. It stands to reason that the players have gotten more system issues than they had 10 days ago, which means this could be a move to test the owners that were pushing for more BRI and more system issues. Their resolve is the biggest threat to this deal getting done. Asking them to shoot down this deal in a more public fashion is the nature of the test. It is a dare. It is a daring dare.

Don’t forget revenue sharing . . . that’s still out there, so it seems. Although, it may have been a move on revenue sharing that gets this done at the 50-50 level rather than more skewed to the owners.

For the New Orleans Hornets, this paves the way, if it goes through, for them to translate those ticket sales into attendance numbers, and puts us squarely on the path to new ownership. Contraction, it seems, for the moment, has been averted. Henry Abbott agrees on that enough to call us “winners” in this fight.

It also places the Chris Paul situation front and center, with Dell Demps looking to bring players in or ship Chris out, and Monty trying to put forward a system that can handle all of this given that not even half of his roster is known to him, including who the starting power forward is, as the David West situation still has to unfold.

Two weeks to plan.

Two weeks to execute.

It’s an interesting time.

Stay tuned.

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