Nba Future On Ballot

Get the ballot boxes ready. More than 400 players who appeared in NBA games this season have gotten clearance to decide their own fate.

That happened when Daniel Silverman, the New York regional director of the National Labor Relations Board, established the ground rules for the players to vote on whether they should decertify the National Basketball Players Association as their collective bargaining representative.

Silverman said the vote should be conducted by secret ballot at regional NLRB offices, either in late August or early September. Eligible players include those on active rosters and injured lists at the end of last season, plus any others who signed more than one 10-day contract during the season.

Some agents had hoped that only players on team rosters at the end of the season would be eligible, as opposed to including many short-term players who had not paid union dues.

It is believed that 422 players are eligible. A simple majority vote would decertify the union.

The bad news is, if the union were to be decertified, the start of next season could be in peril.

“The league and the teams are going to have to provide players with adequate information on what’s transpired,” said deputy commissioner Russ Granik, the league’s lead negotiator. “We will explain that, if the union is decertified, we are putting at risk at least part of the season. That’s the choice the players are going to have to make.”

Granik has said that the league will not operate next season without a new collective bargaining agreement. The most recent agreement expired after the 1993-94 playoffs, and a new six-year agreement between the league and the executive board of the union came apart when a group of dissident players began a move toward decertification. The league imposed a lockout July 1.