NBA owners now offering players ‘flex cap’

June 22, 2011|By Gary Washburn, Globe Staff

The NBA players said they will give commissioner David Stern (left) an answer… (Bebeto Matthews/Associated…)

NEW YORK — What NBA commissioner David Stern described as a “critical’’ day for labor negotiations in hopes of avoiding a lockout turned into a four-hour session that resulted in progress but also more questions.

After offering a $45 million hard cap the past few months — an offer steadfastly rejected by the Players Association — Stern called the league’s new proposal a “flex cap’’ that would set a median salary cap at $62 million and eliminate the large disparity in spending among teams.

This past season, the Los Angeles Lakers had the league’s highest payroll at $91 million, while the Sacramento Kings spent a league-low $44 million. The owners want to implement an “NHL-type’’ system, according to deputy commissioner Adam Silver, one that would allow teams to exceed the $62 million cap but would also place the financial onus on the players if the average payroll of all 30 teams exceeded $62 million.

The league is seeking to lower overall player salaries, limit guaranteed contracts, and reduce player basketball-related income. Stern promised during a press conference at the Omni Berkshire Hotel yesterday that player revenues would not dip below $2 billion per season.

However, the new proposal is dramatically different from the current plan, which has a $58.044 million salary cap and levies a dollar-for-dollar penalty for teams that exceed the luxury tax of $70.3 million, which the Celtics have done the past several seasons.

The Players Association said it will spend the next three days determining whether it interprets this proposal as a hard cap with different language. The players asked to meet again Friday in New York.

“The owners believe that the system modifications that we have requested make a lot of sense to make sure that our teams are both competitive and profitable,’’ Stern said. “We have modified our proposal to a ‘flex cap,’ where there is a targeted salary but teams can go above it and teams will have a minimum below it, which is more flexible than our last offer.

“We think this is virtually the best shot we have to demonstrate to the players our good faith, our desire to go as far as we can to avoid a lockout.’’

Stern would not say whether this was the owners’ final offer, but he did appear close to the end.

“This makes 10 proposals that have gone back and forth, at least,’’ he said. “We think we’ve demonstrated that we’re here to try to make a deal.’’

According to Players Association president Derek Fisher of the Lakers, the sides have not agreed on any of the smaller issues because they are interconnected with the hard cap and guaranteed salaries.