Skip to content

Report: NBPA to vote on new union head Monday night, told to brace for potential lockout in 2017

REUTERS/Larry Downing / reuters

The National Basketball Players Association is sick of waiting: they're voting on a new union head to replace former leader Billy Hunter on Monday night.

The news comes via Marc Stein of ESPN, who relays that "union officials have included as much detail in their memo to players about the post-vote afterparty as the vote itself."

Stein also notes that two of the three finalists for the positions - Dallas Mavericks CEO Terdema Ussery, Washington attorney Michele Roberts and tech industry CEO Dean Garfield - are unfamiliar faces within NBA circles, which player agents find upsetting. 

So upsetting that "top agents are urging their clients not to vote and pushing for other candidates to be considered," report ESPN's Brian Windhorst and Ramona Shelburne. 

It's not only player agents who are upset with the process:

The process is troublesome for many reasons. 

First, each candidate will only have 45 minutes to give a presentation to the union, which is a worry considering two (Roberts and Garfield) are unknown quantities. 

Second, player agents are clamoring for the players to delay the vote, a logical move considering the expedited timeline of the process. But the players are pushing forward with the vote anyway.

Third, and most worrisome of all, the players have reportedly been told to brace for a potential lockout in 2017, when the current collective bargaining agreement expires.

All this is quite hurried, and it comes on the heels of Kevin Johnson's dismissal Friday. He was leading the search for union head before being relieved of his title.

The upcoming CBA dispute is a contentious issue, as it's widely perceived that the owners oversold the calamity of their fiduciary accounts in the 2011 lockout, which led to the players receiving a much-less favorable portion of revenues. Given the recent sales of the Milwaukee Bucks ($500 million) and the upcoming deal for the Los Angeles Clippers ($2 billion), it's clear that the league is not in dire financial straits.

Daily Newsletter

Get the latest trending sports news daily in your inbox