Stern warning sounded for NBA season on the brink

NBA players and club owners face hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenue and risk alienating loyal supporters as the lockout approaches its 100th day and a Monday deadline to save season openers. Team owners and players have not been able to agree on how to divide $3.8 billion in annual revenues and on salary cap issues, the gap so wide it could jeopardize the entire 2011-2012 campaign. NBA commissioner David Stern said when he completed the cancelling of all 114 pre-season games that if no deal is made by Monday, what would be Day 102 of the lockout, the NBA would wipe out the first two weeks of its schedule. "We would like not to lose the first two weeks but it doesn't look good," Stern said. "When you start losing regular-season games on top of losses in the exhibition season, you have two parties that have been financially wounded." Stern predicted wiping out the pre-season games would cost $200 million and NBA deputy commissioner Adam Silver said lost weeks of the season would bring much greater losses much faster. "They are in the hundreds of millions of dollars," Silver said. "We're not prepared to share the specifics. But we've spent a lot of time with our teams walking through those scenarios of lost games and the damage will be enormous." Billy Hunter, executive director of the NBA Players Association, said the players would lose $350 million for each month of the season they miss. But with NBA superstars Kobe Bryant, Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce providing a backdrop, Hunter said the players were set to accept lost games in order to avoid having the owners impose a salary cap and what would be massive pay cuts. "Maybe a month. Two months. Your guess is as good as mine," Hunter said when asked when he thought talks might resume on a deal to replace the one that expired July 1, touching off the lockout by owners. "Our guys have indicated a willingness to lose games and when they stand up behind us here, that's what they're saying. If they didn't feel that way, we would have done something different." Talks broke off when players were unwilling to accept a 50-50 split of basketball-related revenues, a substantial drop from the 57 percent they enjoyed under the prior contract. Stern said that once the season starts losing games, it becomes tougher to find middle ground in talks or a way back. "Positions harden when regular-season games start to be lost on top of the exhibition season, which is not inconsequential," Stern said. The average NBA player salary of about $5.1 million is the highest in American sport, part of the reason owners say the NBA lost $300 million last season and that only eight of 30 clubs turned a profit. Stern, whose league laid off 114 people in July, showed no reaction when asked about star NBA players making deals to play overseas during the lockout, notably including Bryant's talks to play in Italy. "A player who makes (an NBA salary of) $16 million is going to make $3 million in Turkey and a player who makes $5 million here is going to make $1 million in China," Stern said. "We have no reaction other than, 'Be safe. Come back when we settle.'" The only prior NBA season shortened due to money issues was in 1998-99 when the campaign was cut to 50 games per club because it took so long to reach a deal. Only once in American sports history has an entire season been lost to players and team owners being unable to agree upon financial terms, that being the National Hockey League's lost 2004-2005 campaign. NHL owners lost the entire season but generally were able to impose conditions they wanted in the eventual contract, which expires next September. Some owners of NHL teams that suffered through that missed season are among the NBA club owners who are involved in the latest deadlock.