The lead negotiator and spokesman for NBA referees announced Thursday that the referees expect to be locked out when exhibition play starts Oct. 1 after contract negotiations with the league broke down this week.
Lamell McMorris, in a press release, also asserts that the NBA has begun to contact replacement referees to work in the preseason and perhaps the early part of the regular season.
NBA lead negotiator Rick Buchanan, in response, said Thursday that talks collapsed because the referees’ union changed its mind after agreeing to accept the league’s proposals on retirement benefits. Buchanan added that “all the union has offered to us is minimal concessions that are neither consistent with economic reality nor with the information it is currently distributing to the media.”
The statements were issued in the wake of an ESPN.com report Tuesday, when the latest negotiating session between the referees and league executives came to an abrupt end in New York, significantly increasing the possibility that replacement refs will be needed in the NBA for the first time since the 1995-96 season.
In Thursday’s editions of the New York Times, McMorris said he was “frustrated and disappointed at the unprofessional and disrespectful manner in which Mr. Stern ended what was a productive negotiating session” on Tuesday. McMorris also echoed the growing belief that Stern is taking a hard line with referees “to send a message to the players,” whose own labor contract with the NBA expires during the 2010-11 season.
In a separate interview with the Times, Stern told the newspaper that negotiations with the referees have “nothing to do with the player negotiations” and insisted that Tuesday’s talks, as Buchanan said, collapsed because McMorris’ union reneged on previously agreed-upon facets of a new contract.
The NBA’s contract with its referees expired Sept. 1, but no further talks are scheduled between the sides with only 20 days before the league’s Oct. 1 exhibition opener (Denver at Utah).
Asked if the dispute can be resolved before the season starts, Stern told the Times: “Right now, I’m not optimistic.”
ESPN.com reported Aug. 25 that the league is seeking an across-the-board reduction of 10 percent to a referee budget that costs an estimated $32 million. In his statement Thursday, McMorris said that the referees have proposed a reduction to the budget of $2.5 million, which includes freezing salaries for the 2009-10 season in addition to reducing travel costs by 15 percent and per diem by 7 percent.
The referees have scheduled a meeting in Chicago next week to discuss their next steps, with their annual training camp in New Jersey – scheduled to start Sept. 20 – on hold.
Information from Espn.com and the New York Times contributed to this report.