Barnstorming A Possibility If Lockout Comes

The Utah Jazz met with a representative of the National Basketball Players Association to discuss labor strategies.

One possibility would be staging games on their own next season if owners lock them out in an attempt to renegotiate the collective bargaining agreement.

“That’s just a possibility,” said Chris Morris.

Morris, the Jazz’s player representative, was the only one willing to talk about what went on during the meeting with Bob Dandridge, the union rep.

Morris said the union is “just trying to plan” for what might happen next summer, and that “it’s just a situation now where the owners and the league are trying to get really greedy. That’s the way I see it.”

The NBA wants to renegotiate its collective bargaining agreement with the players union because it says the deal has escalated players’ salaries so much that more than one-third of the teams lost money last season.

The players believe they’re finally getting a fair share of the NBA wealth and that the current system is working fine.

The bargaining agreement gives owners the option to scrap it and negotiate a new one after the 1997-98 season. The league could lock out the players until a new deal is reached.

Morris said no decisions were made and the union reps will meet again during All-Star Weekend next month in New York.

Charges against Johnson dropped

The Orange County state attorney’s office in Orlando, Fla., has dropped its case against former Celtics guard and assistant coach Dennis Johnson, charged last October with threatening his wife with a kitchen knife.

Tracy Sutherland, a spokesman for the office, said charges of aggravated felony assault, simple assault, simple battery and domestic violence were dismissed following the refusal of Johnson’s wife and son to press charges.