NBA Team Owners Set Up Call to Discuss Lockout Strategy

Now that the players have made their move, it’s time for owners to offer a counter. They’ll be on a conference call today to determine what, exactly, that is. Per Yahoo! Sports: “The NBA’s labor relations committee, which is responsible for negotiations with the players, scheduled the call earlier in the week, sources said. Shortly after the Players Association declared on Monday that it would disband as a union and file suit, Stern suggested in a TV interview that the NBA wouldn’t be in a rush to initiate contact with the players’ attorneys. For several reasons, it won’t be easy to get the owners to move quickly toward re-engaging the new leadership of the players. Many owners believed Stern had gone too far with the league’s final proposal to the union and were privately wishing for the players to reject the offer so they could thrust upon the players a far more rigid ‘reset’ deal.”