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Go get ’em, George.
George Cohen, President Obama’s appointee as a chief federal mediator, met with David Stern and his NBA labor relations committee yesterday morning at the league offices, then shuttled downtown to his old friends from the Players Association in a whirlwind day.
Today, Cohen, the former general counsel of the Players Association from 1982 to 1995, gets down and dirty and tries to do what he couldn’t immediately do with the NFL — solve the NBA’s labor war.
Cohen and the two parties will gather in a midtown hotel and try to strike a compromise on a raft of issues — from the hard salary cap the owners want to the split of basketball revenue.
Stern said if a deal is reached today, he could see the regular season beginning in a month.
“We would push as hard as possible to be up and running in 30 days,” Stern told CNN yesterday.
However, one source familiar with the situation said it probably is unlikely Cohen can do the whole job in one day, but his esteemed presence could facilitate imminent future negotiations after the two sides broke down miserably eight days ago.
That prompted the cancellation of the first two weeks of the regular season. Stern has threatened the entire season could be lost if Cohen can’t get them close to an agreement. Stern has also indicated lots more cancellations — perhaps through Christmas — are at hand if major headway is not made today.
Stern will host the Board of Governors’ meetings with all his owners tomorrow and Thursday, and would not be able to reconvene with Cohen until Friday.
During the NFL lockout, Cohen joined the meetings in February and staged 17 sessions, mostly at his office in Washington, before bailing out on March 11. The NFL did not settle until mid-July — four months later — but Cohen has been given credit for furthering the process.
Not so in the NHL. Cohen failed to prevent the NHL from canceling its season in 2004-05 after trying to mediate early in the impasse. One source said, in fact, he was brought in too early to make a difference.
In a statement, Cohen explained why he is getting involved.
“It is evident the ongoing dispute will result in a serious impact,” the statement said, “not only upon the parties directly involved, but also, of major concern, on interstate commerce — the employers and working men and women who provide services related to the basketball games, and, more generally, on the economy of every city in which those games are scheduled to be played.”
Stern’s main premise for a hard cap is to create balance among the 30 NBA teams and not have a decided edge for big-market teams.