The National Basketball Players Association rejected NBA owners’ latest demands Monday, choosing instead to file a ‘disclaimer of interest’ that will pave the way for the players to file an antitrust lawsuit against the league.
The legal maneuver, as SI.com writer Michael McCann told NBA TV Monday, will allow the NBPA to “walk away” from the players, ending the collective bargaining relationship and allowing the players to challenge the league on antitrust grounds. Like the NFLPA earlier this year, the NBPA will become a trade association.
The move allows the NBPA to bypass the decertification process. In 1995, a group of dissident players led by Michael Jordan, Patrick Ewing and lawyer Jeffery Kessler, forced a decertification vote, but the players voted to keep the union intact.
Dissolving the union became necessary after the 1994 NBA v. Williams decision, which the players lost on appeal in 1995. On June 17, 1994, the NBA filed a claim in New York District Court seeking a declaratory judgement that the nonstatutory labor exemption, which protects management from antitrust scrutiny, applies even in the absence of a current collective bargaining agreement.
In addition, the league sought to have three challenged provisions of the 1988 CBA — the salary cap, right of first refusal and NBA Draft — ruled permissible even in the absence of a collective bargaining relationship under the ‘rule of reason,’ which protects certain anti-competitive practices from antitrust scrutiny so long as they are not unreasonably uncompetitive.
The court ruled in favor of the league on both counts. The case established that the only means by which the players can challenge the league in the courts is to end their collective bargaining relationship. In addition, the case set the precedent that some of the league’s anti-competitive practices are indeed shielded from antitrust scrutiny regardless of whether a collective bargaining relationship exists.
NBPA executive director Billy Hunter said Monday that the players would file an antitrust suit against the league in the coming days.
NBA Commissioner David Stern and the league’s 29 owners chose to commence a lockout of players in July. The 2011 lockout is the fourth work stoppage in league history, with all four having been owner-instituted lockouts.
