On Wednesday, the NBA and the NBPA (National Basketball Association Players Association) announced that they have reached a tentative deal on a new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA). According to the released statement, the tentative deal is pending ratification by players and team owners. And in a series of tweets, Golden State Warriors’ human army Swiss knife, Draymond Green, doesn’t appear to be too happy about it.
According to veteran NBA reporter Adrian Wojnarowski, among the notable items in the agreement includes the shortening of the league’s preseason schedule, which would lead to an earlier start to the NBA season. This would reduce the number of back-to-back games and help space out games better. He also added that some of the more relevant clauses from the last CBA, like the luxury tax rules and the basketball-related income split between the players and the owners will remain 50-50. It was unclear, which parts of the new CBA Draymond Green’s tweets were referring to.
As noted by Kevin O’Connor, with the tentative agreement, NBA salaries is expected to average $8.5 million in 2017, and up to $10 million in 2020. In comparison, the MLB player’s average salary is $4.4 million, while the NFL players average $2.1 million. Draymond Green signed a five-year $82 million contract with the Golden State Warriors. He has an annual average salary of $16.4 million.
ESPN’s Marc Stein reports that the reason talks were held up concerned “control over licensing and player likeness.” He points out that NBA players wanted more control of the fore mentioned, similar to what the NFL players have.
“In order to give both sides enough time to review the terms of the agreement and vote to ratify, the parties have agreed to extend the mutual deadline to opt out of the existing CBA from Dec. 15, 2016, to Jan. 13, 2017. Specific terms will be made available at a later date,” the released statement read.