As the NBA lockout continues to drag into November, ultimatums and hardline tactics have been tossed around left and right by both owners and the players. However, the one man who seems to have stuck by his word (for better or worse) has seen commissioner David J. Stern.
SB Nation's own Mike Prada took an account of the latest musings from the NBA commissioner:
On the deadline: "We think there's a great offer on table, and we told the players, 'It's getting late.' The only rational thing is to make that deal b/c given what is going on in our business and our industry, it will get worse from there. We told the players ... an offer of 47% will become operative w/ hard cap in effect [if they don't accept."
On decertification: "I don't think it would affect it particularly much. The reality is that decertification route was tried by the NFL players and the court of appeals for 8th Circuit soundly rejected the attempt. I don't know what they're thinking."
On the owners being unified: "They're unified in their willingness to make this deal through Wednesday, then they'll be unified in willingness to negotiate the 47 percent proposal that goes on table at close of business Wednesday." In other words, they're unified because I said so.
On the cancellation of more games: "I don't want to say when we'll call off the season, because clearly we're not there yet and I don't want to make an idle threat."
Telling words from the man who works for the owners, should NBA fans cross their fingers to Wednesday being the day the madness ends? It seems that even Yahoo! Sports Adrian Wojnarowski thinks so:
@WojYahooNBA Adrian WojnarowskiThe NBA and NBPA are seriously discussing setting up a meeting for Tuesday to try and reach agreement on a labor deal, league source tells Y!
Let's keep hope alive people, at least for another 48 hours.
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