{coyotes} DECERTIFICATION 'THROWS EVERYTHING INTO CHAOS'

Tuesday 27 November 2012

{coyotes} DECERTIFICATION 'THROWS EVERYTHING INTO CHAOS'

The Toronto Star reminds readers it was about this time last year the NBA players voted to decertify their union, leaving the league open to a potential anti-trust lawsuit if the two sides didn't come to an agreement. Within two weeks, the NBA had a deal with its players.

Having gone through it, Matt Bonner of the San Antonio Spurs - once a Toronto Raptor and a member of the NBA Players Association negotiating team - says the decertification ploy has risks for both sides and shouldn't be a path chosen lightly.

"It's hard because it throws everything into chaos," said Bonner. "It just adds a huge degree of uncertainty to the situation. It's a tough decision for the players to make and it's tough for the owners to deal with. That's a possible strategy to get the owners to move, to budge."

From an NHL point of view, if the union decertified, teams would have to deal on an individual basis with players for things like pensions and benefits, matters the union deals with now. The draft could be deemed an illegal restraint of trade. All players without contracts, not just ones of a certain age, could be deemed to be unrestricted free agents. But players could lose some benefits, including minimum salaries and guaranteed contracts.

"The bottom line is we did everything we could to get a deal up to that point," said Bonner. "We reached an impasse where we didn't feel they were negotiating and we had to do something drastic to negotiate with.

"That's the decision we made. It throws everything into uncertainty. You don't know what the outcome is going to be."

Within two weeks of the NBAPA decertifying, the players reached a deal and were on the court by Christmas.

Just how big a role decertifying played in spurring the deal, Bonner cannot be sure.

"I think only David Stern and the owners can answer that. I'm sure they never would tell us," said Bonner. "Obviously it caused the deal to get done pretty soon thereafter. You could argue that helped the process.

"Or you could argue they had a timeline in mind anyway and were going to get a deal no matter what. Or you could argue they were going to push us to that point and squeeze us for every last drop and then cut a deal. I don't know. They'll never tell us.

"I don't envy the position the hockey players are in."