Tamika Tremaglio, executive director of the NBA Players Association, organized a friendly pre-season social gathering between association officials and NBA executives: team games, cocktails, and even a five-on-five basketball game. They would spend most of the next few months negotiating against each other for the next collective bargaining agreement, and Tremaglio first wanted them to have some fun together.
Tremaglio and NBA Commissioner Adam Silver competed against each other in an egg toss.
She said, “For the good of us, Adam and I, we didn’t have to play basketball.”
The content of the relationship between the league and its players’ union appears to be far from the contentious moments that have pervaded their history: players’ first attempts to form unions in the 1950s; Tense years in the nineties. And a hostile battle in 2011 led to the closing of the last league.
Lately, the NBA’s labor scene has been quiet, but the strength of this camaraderie is being tested by pressure points during negotiations that addressed issues such as the minimum age for players entering the league, potential championship in the season, and the league’s luxury tax. System.
One of those pressure points could come this week as the deadline for both sides to withdraw from the current agreement approaches Friday. Silver said Wednesday afternoon that he can expect to reach an agreement by Friday, but that the league will likely walk away if that doesn’t happen. That would make the current collective bargaining agreement expire on June 30 instead of the end of the 2023-24 season and add urgency to negotiations for a new agreement. Tremaglio said in a statement that the union does not plan to withdraw.
“If we don’t have an agreement and the league decides to withdraw, it will be disappointing given all the work that both sides have done in the negotiations, and the fair nature of our requests,” Tremaglio said.
Whatever happens will be set against the backdrop of an era in which NBA players and team owners collaborated greatly, making their dynamic look much different from the labor battles that have recently played out across many industries in the United States.
People on both sides refer to the relationship between players and team owners as a partnership, and they often develop friendships with each other. During this period, star players wield enormous power over their careers on and off the field, and the league benefited from lucrative media rights deals.
“It’s not like you can draw a line and say before it was bad and now it’s good or anything,” said Jeffrey Kessler, the union’s principal outside counsel, who has been with the union since 1978. Over time, it is shaped by many different forces, shaped by the economics of the time, shaped by the personalities of the time, shaped by experience. They go through different cycles.”
Finance, as is often the case with collective bargaining in any industry, shaped the tenor of the relationship for decades. In 1954, when NBA players first tried to organize, one of their top issues was pushing back a group of players. The association recognized the federation three years later.
Labor organization and trade unions
- Hollywood writers: Unions representing thousands of TV and film writers said they had overwhelming support for the strike, and have given union leaders the right to call a walkout when their contract expires on May 1.
- Rutgers University: Unions representing nearly 9,000 faculty members at New Jersey’s leading public university suspended a strike that lasted nearly a week after reaching consensus with the school on critical provisions.
- Police Benevolent Association: Patrick J. said: Lynch, president of the New York City Police Officers Union, which has just negotiated a new contract, said he would be leaving the position at the end of his term.
Over the next several decades, issues such as pensions, free agency, and players’ share of league profits became sticking points.
“We were the first to put a percentage of revenue growth into players,” said Junior Bridgman, a former player, referring to CBA 1983, two years before he began his term as president of the Players Association. The league’s popularity was growing due to Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, and Michael Jordan. “Nobody at the time believed that the numbers would reach where they are today and be as meaningful as they are today.”
Today, Bridgman is a business magnate who has made a fortune in the food and beverage industry, but when he first attended bargain sessions, he considered it an informal MBA curriculum. He saw what matters to the team owners and how they communicate.
“Most meetings end up with some degree of argument,” Bridgman said. He added, “We went to one meeting that lasted seven minutes. We got up and walked out. It was the art of negotiation in real life.”
In 1995, the league locked out players for the first time. The federation’s leadership and representatives of the league agreed to a deal, but the players were dissatisfied with the basic terms and the manner in which the negotiations were conducted. A group of high-profile players sued the monopoly and moved to abolish the union.
They reached an agreement before the season began, but the deal had an opt-out clause that ultimately led to the longest lockout in league history, nearly canceling the 1998–99 season. The two sides reached an agreement in January 1999.
Silver has worked in the NBA since 1992, and spent much of his early years in NBA Entertainment. He became the league’s deputy commissioner, under David Stern, in 2006, the year the 19-year-old minimum went into effect.
The league’s next downtime came in 2011. Stern hired Silver as the league’s negotiating lead for those talks. Silver laughed at the address.
“When David Stern is in the room, he’s the chief negotiator,” Silver said in a phone interview Monday.
Stern, who passed away in 2020, was still really the face of those negotiations. His acerbic wit and tough demeanor led to unforgettable moments. Billy Hunter, then executive director of the union, once said he thought the league’s claim that it was losing $400 million a year was “nonsense”. Stern, whose family owned a restaurant, quipped, “I grew up on Stern’s Delicatessen. He’s got his meat all wrong.”
As a player, Michael Jordan was heavily involved in union battles. His name was on the antitrust lawsuit that Kessler filed on behalf of the players in 1995.
In 2010, he became the majority owner of the Charlotte Bobcats, now the Hornets, and played an active role in business negotiations later that decade. He is now Chairman of the Labor Relations Committee.
“Maybe some people on my part expected that when Michael is at the table, everything will be fine,” Silver said. “Oh, Michael Jordan says that. So this should be a fair position.”
He said that the players did not agree. “There’s no question I admire and trust Michael Jordan, but now we’re, basically, opponents in the process,” Silver recalls star guard Chris Paul, who was president of the league from 2013-21.
Silver believes the relationship between the players and the league is more trusting now than it was in previous bargaining cycles, in part because the league is more open about its finances.
“It doesn’t necessarily make it easier to close the deal,” Silver said. “But now we’re able to jump over what used to be months of back-and-forth over the so-called truth about the league’s financials.”
Drafted in 2005, Paul said he’s seen players become more interested and engaged in understanding the workings of the league now than at any time in his career. Silver has been keen to build personal capital with players. He also fostered a close relationship with Tremaglio’s predecessor, Michelle Roberts, who held the position from July 2014 to January 2022. Roberts declined to be interviewed for this story to avoid exposure that she was trying to influence negotiations out of retirement.
“That’s one of his strengths,” said Jerry Colangelo, who was a Bulls executive in the 1960s before leaving for and later owning the Phoenix Suns. “He’s a communicator, and a great communicator. David was a little longer than an arm.” He added, “Both are really good negotiators. Both can be very difficult when they need to be tough. But on a personal basis, Adam is more available.”
Both Silver and Paul said this does not mean negotiations are any easier.
“They are always in contention,” Paul said.
This productive relationship helps during times of unexpected disruption, such as when the coronavirus pandemic struck and caused the league to shut down operations in 2020.
“Closing the business, playing in a bubble in Orlando, all of those things were beyond the scope of our agreement,” Silver said. “The confidence has enabled us to sit down with the leadership in the federation, with the leaders – and with the players’ executive committee – and work through some really difficult issues,” he added.
Their shared stakes also helped them get through a work stoppage that occurred in the bubble when players, led by the Milwaukee Bucks, decided not to play after a white police officer in Kenosha, Wisconsin, fatally shot a black man named Jacob Blake. Before games resumed, players met with team owners via video conferencing and asked them to commit to supporting social justice concerns.
During the pandemic hiatus, Silver said he and other league executives began having daily calls with Paul, guard Kyle Lowry and center Dwight Powell, who were part of the league’s competition committee. They investigated how players felt about issues like returning to play, their safety and the racial justice movements that were sweeping the country.
When CJ McCollum replaced Paul as union president in August 2021, he was added to those calls. The calls are no longer daily, Silver said, but they still happen regularly.
“We talk about everything,” McCollum, one of the Pelican guards, said of his relationship with Silver. “The state of the game, where the game is located, ways to improve.”
This season they discussed topics such as the uptick in travel calls and changes in miss calls. When WNBA star Brittney Griner was imprisoned in Russia, McCollum said they sometimes discussed what they could do to help efforts to free her.
Tremaglio, the NBPA’s executive director, said the gig last fall helped her strengthen her relationships with league executives as well.
We work together, right? Tremaglio said. “For me, I tend to do business with people that I like and know something about.” She added, “I thought it was very important before we got into negotiations that we had a chance to get to know each other.”
There have been some new faces in the league and new faces in the league office, and most of their interactions over the past several months have been distant.
“I agree,” Silver said. “I think it was a great idea.”
He added, “When you negotiate with a players’ association, or frankly any collectively negotiated relationship, you get a deal, and then the next day you’re dealing with exactly those people and you’re living by that deal.”
Al-Ittihad won the matches, Tremaglio said, although league sources question this dispute. The stakes were lower that day, but their competitive nature persisted.