MIAMI -- NBA commissioner David Stern reiterated Tuesday his
confidence that a new labor agreement between the league's players
and owners can be struck in the coming weeks.
Stern said a large group of players will meet in Chicago on
Wednesday, and that another meeting with players and owners is
scheduled in New York on May 17.
"We expect to have some informal discussions, staff-to-staff,
in preparation of having a meeting on Tuesday in New York at which
a significant group of owners and players, together with staffs
from the union and the NBA, will get together," Stern said before
Tuesday's Washington-Miami playoff game.
The current collective bargaining agreement is set to expire on
June 30. Talks have been held sporadically since February.
Among the key issues to be addressed in the negotiations are the
maximum length of player contracts, maximum annual raises allowed
in those contracts, and the future of the escrow and luxury taxes
designed to dissuade spending on player salaries.
"I'm optimistic that we will be making some progress next
week," Stern said.
The commissioner also addressed a number of topics, including
the selection of Phoenix's Steve Nash over Miami's Shaquille O'Neal
as the league's Most Valuable Player and his ongoing push for the
institution of a minimum age -- he prefers it'd be 20 -- for players
to enter the league.
Stern said he didn't see anything unique with the fact that one
of the league's MVP voters left O'Neal off his ballot entirely.
O'Neal lost to Nash in the fourth-closest MVP vote in the last
quarter-century.
"It happens every year in some shape or form," Stern said.
Regarding the age-limit issue, Stern repeated a familiar refrain
-- that he wants the league's scouts and general managers take their
scouting out of high school gyms.
"Their presence there is unseemly in my view," Stern said.