NBA and players reach tentative contract agreement; Wade, Nowitzki added to Hall of Fame
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The new NBA labour deal must be ratified by players and the league’s board of governors before it becomes official.
PHOTO: USA TODAY SPORTS
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NEW YORK – The National Basketball Association (NBA) and its players’ union have agreed to a new collective bargaining agreement that will ensure labour peace, the league announced on Saturday.
The new deal must be ratified by players and the league’s board of governors before it becomes official.
The deal includes the addition of an in-season tournament with monetary rewards for players and coaches who win it, the removal of marijuana as a banned substance, and a second luxury-tax tier, according to a person familiar with the terms who requested anonymity because the deal is not ratified.
The new collective bargaining agreement will begin next season and last for seven years, with a mutual opt-out clause after six years, the person said.
Although some expected that this collective bargaining agreement would lower the age limit for entering the NBA draft to 18 from 19, the sides did not agree to that.
The age limit will remain at 19, which means most players coming out of high school will need to wait a year before entering the draft.
The league announced the deal after the parties agreed to extend the midnight deadline for either side to opt out of the current agreement, which has been in effect since 2017.
Had the sides not agreed or come close by Friday, the league intended to exercise the opt-out clause, according to commissioner Adam Silver.
That would have caused the current collective bargaining agreement to expire on June 30 instead of in 2024, compressing the time the sides would have had to avoid a work stoppage.
The NBA has not had a work stoppage since the lockout in 2011, which delayed the start of that season until Christmas.
Meanwhile, Dwyane Wade and Dirk Nowitzki are among 12 inductees in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame Class of 2023.
Wade and Nowitzki will be joined by NBA champions Pau Gasol and Tony Parker, long-time Spurs coach Gregg Popovich and six-time Women’s National Basketball Association All-Star Becky Hammon, among others.
“This is basketball heaven,” Wade said on the ESPN telecast of the official announcement made on Saturday in Houston at the NCAA Tournament’s Final Four.
Others elected to the Hall are: former North Carolina State coach Jim Valvano, who died in 1993; former Purdue coach Gene Keady; former Texas A&M women’s coach Gary Blair; David Hixon, former long-time coach at Amherst; Gene Bess, the most successful college coach with 1,300 victories; and the 1976 United States women’s Olympic basketball team. NYTIMES, REUTERS
