Stern: It’s time to start negotiating

LOS ANGELES — NBA Commissioner David Stern said Saturday “it’s time to start negotiating” a new collective-bargaining agreement and get rid of the rhetoric.

And with the deadline approaching, he thinks that’s being done.

“I think we have excised it,” he said during his annual all-star news conference.

Not entirely, though. Shortly after he said the players largely agreed with the league’s financial figures, the union said it still disagreed.

Stern said the league and the players association realize the importance of agreeing to a deal before the expiration of the current one on June 30, adding that both sides understand from the work stoppage of 1998 how devastating a lockout could be.

“We both have the capacity to shut down the league,” he said. “There’s no magic that’s going to keep this league operating if we don’t make a deal.”

The sides met Friday and agreed to hold more talks in smaller groups over the next few months.

The union has been frustrated by what it believes is an unwillingness by the league to negotiate. The NBA has offered no new proposals in the year since the players rejected its initial one during last year’s all-star break.

But both sides said their meeting Friday was cordial and believe it showed a desire on both sides to focus more on the issues.

“I liked yesterday’s meeting, because the union agreed to talk about some things that they said were nonnegotiable,” Stern said.

“Yesterday what I heard for the first time in response to our statement is that they were willing to talk about everything. And so we welcome that and now we are going to spend our time setting up small and large groups to talk about everything. And then we’ll see how it goes.”

Stern declined to specify what the union was now open to discussing, though he added that in order to make the league more competitive “there are certain system changes that cover a lot of different subjects that change the status quo.”

That would seem to imply a hard salary cap, which union executive director Billy Hunter has called a “nonstarter.”

There were no indications Friday during its news conference that the union has backed off its stance against a hard cap, which the owners want to replace the current system that allows certain exceptions to the cap.

Stern also said the union now largely agreed with the league’s revenue projections.

“We sort of both agreed that the numbers are what they are and it doesn’t pay to argue about them anymore,” Stern said. “They are real.”

Hunter released a statement after the news conference saying: “There has been ongoing debate and disagreement regarding the numbers, and we do not agree that the stated loss figures reflect an accurate portrayal of the financial health of the league.”