David Stern Angered By ‘Plantation’ Comment from Union Lawyer
by Marcel Mutoni / @marcel_mutoni
You might recall that NBA commissioner David Stern stayed quiet when the Bryant Gumble race fiasco erupted last month.
He had a vastly different reaction when told of players union lawyer Jeffrey Kessler’s comment about the relationship between players and team owners.
After the union rejected the latest proposal from the League — while agreeing to give up more of their share of the BRI, mind you — Kessler said that owners are treating their players as though they were “plantation owners”, which drew the ire of Stern.
The WaPo reports:
Jeffrey Kessler, a prominent attorney for the players, accused the owners of treating his clients like “plantation workers,” a comment that drew a furious response from Stern. Kessler said the owners’ current offer to give the players half of basketball-related income was not a “fair deal” and that the soft salary cap functioned like a hard cap. “To present that in the context of ‘take it or leave it,’ in our view, that is not good faith,” Kessler, who also represented the NFL players in their labor dispute with the NFL, said in a telephone interview Monday night. “Instead of treating the players like partners, they’re treating them like plantation workers.”
In a phone call Tuesday, Stern blamed Kessler for the stalled talks and said he deserved to be “called to task” for the remark. “Kessler’s agenda is always to inflame and not to make a deal,” Stern said, “even if it means injecting race and thereby insulting his own clients. . . . He has been the single most divisive force in our negotiations and it doesn’t surprise me he would rant and not talk about specifics. Kessler’s conduct is routinely despicable.” The vitriol surely won’t help close the gap. “It certainly is dire,” Stern said about the stalemate.
Well, isn’t that just terrific?
If you can peel yourself away from the inflammatory comments for a moment, it’s important to keep in mind that, though the finish line to this lockout isn’t quite there, both sides have inched ever closer to a deal (thanks to yet another round of financial concessions by the players.)
If cooler heads can prevail (a very big if), this whole nightmare might soon come to an end.
LATEST NEWS & RUMORS
View all »
- Avery Bradley to Undergo Season-Ending Shoulder Surgery
- Jeff Van Gundy Blasts Orlando Magic for Handling of Stan Van Gundy’s Firing
- JR Smith Arrested in Miami Due to License, Then Released
- Kicks: Derrick Williams’ Birthday Sneaker Scavenger Hunt
- Are the Orlando Magic Ready to Trade Dwight Howard?
- Layup Lines: Survival of the Fittest
- Video: Dwyane Wade Was Proud to Wear Hot Pink Pants
- Russell Westbrook Still Bothered By 42 Points Tony Parker Scored on Him
- Magic Johnson Urges Lakers to Pull Trigger on Major Trades
- View All »
He didn’t seem too enamored with David Aldridge’s questions, (DA’s will to live is visibly slipping away before our eyes btw) sidestepped or evaded most of his questions only to yap around with Dennis Scott about some irrelevant feeling.
Darth Stern at his best.
Also, it’s the hard-line owners like MJ and PAllen that are stalling the negotiations not some lawyer.
The extermination and subjugation of indigenous peoples by today’s NATO countries over the last 500 years outdoes even the Nazis, sorry to say.
And Hitler’s “evil empire” was only doing to the European nations what the European nations had been doing to Africa, Asia, and the Americas (and even to themselves) for hundreds and thousands of years.
I find it kinda sad (but his exasperation has some comedic value. Sad but true)
And yes, I agree that DA is looking less like Carlton Banks by the day.
In his book Late Victorian Holocausts, published in 2001, Mike Davis tells the story of famines that killed between 12 and 29 million Indians. These people were, he demonstrates, murdered by British state policy. When an El Niño drought destituted the farmers of the Deccan plateau in 1876 there was a net surplus of rice and wheat in India. But the viceroy, Lord Lytton, insisted that nothing should prevent its export to England. In 1877 and 1878, at the height of the famine, grain merchants exported a record 6.4m hundredweight of wheat. As the peasants began to starve, officials were ordered “to discourage relief works in every possible way”. The Anti-Charitable Contributions Act of 1877 prohibited “at the pain of imprisonment private relief donations that potentially interfered with the market fixing of grain prices”. The only relief permitted in most districts was hard labour, from which anyone in an advanced state of starvation was turned away. In the labour camps, the workers were given less food than inmates of Buchenwald. In 1877, monthly mortality in the camps equated to an annual death rate of 94%.
As millions died, the imperial government launched “a militarised campaign to collect the tax arrears accumulated during the drought”. The money, which ruined those who might otherwise have survived the famine, was used by Lytton to fund his war in Afghanistan. Even in places that had produced a crop surplus, the government’s export policies, like Stalin’s in Ukraine, manufactured hunger. In the north-western provinces, Oud and the Punjab, which had brought in record harvests in the preceeding three years, at least 1.25m died.
nbk, I was joking.
And the lawyer actually was even more circumspect in how he made the comparison.
But, Wayno is right. Because most people lack the logical ability and historical knowledge base to have discussions about slavery, Hitler or most inflammatory subjects, those references have to be made very carefully in any discussion.
The owners don’t need a union because they are openly violating anti-trust laws but are protected because they are bargaining with a union.
The cost of my desire
Jesus blessed me with its future
And I protect it with fire
So raise your fists, and march around
Just don’t take what you need
I’ll jail and bury those committed
And smother the rest in greed
Crawl with me into tomorrow
Or I’ll drag you to your grave
I’m deep inside your children
They’ll betray you in my name”
Comments