After more than 30 hours of NBA labor negotiations in the past three days, players were left shocked by the sudden breakdown in discussions last night. Thinking progress was slowly taking shape with the aid of a federal mediator, the players now describe more acrimony and distrust than at any other point during the process.
“I hate to use the expression the gloves are off, but for all intents and purposes, the gloves are off,” NBA Players Association VP Mo Evans said after the meeting in Midtown. “I don’t want to get into he said, she said, but the press conference [NBA Deputy Commissioner Adam Silver and Spurs owner Peter Holt] had wasn’t very accurate. We were making progress, and for that to suddenly end, that just speaks volumes.”
NBAPA president Derek Fisher said he felt a shift in the tone of discussions following the NBA Board of Governors meeting yesterday morning and that an agreement might never have been possible this week.
“I don’t know if there was ever an intent coming into the process, at least for them, that they were going to go past a certain point,” Fisher said. “To spend the amount of time we spent here, it’s not right, it’s not fair, it’s wrong. To have the process halted, just on an ultimatum, when both sides agreed to this process, it is frustrating. We realize how much is at stake, but we don’t feel the entire solution of this problem should come from player concessions.”
With no further meetings scheduled, more games, and potentially the entire season, are in jeopardy. Having fallen woefully short of an agreement after so much time, the two sides are making a gap look like a canyon.
“I don’t know where we go from here,” Chris Paul told The Post. “We’re trying to reach a deal and we feel like we’re being more than reasonable. The toughest part for us was that it was that [the owners] said just take it or leave it. We had to swallow our pride and our egos. They only want to negotiate on their preconditions. There’s nothing more that we can do. We can’t do it under those preconditions.”
When asked if negotiations might be able to resume in the next few days, Evans wasn’t optimistic.
“I wouldn’t bet on it,” Evans said. “We were prepared to stay though the weekend or whatever was needed. That’s why the 16-hour meeting [on Tuesday] transpired to begin with. . . . We made offers that made it hard for them to resist and I don’t think they did that for us.”
howard.kussoy@nypost.com