Maurice Evans would rather be on the way back to Washington. Instead, he was returning to New York on Wednesday, ready to play the role of a National Basketball Players Association vice president, ready for one more meeting with the NBA owners before the current collective bargaining agreement expires.
Despite the threat of the owners locking out the players if a new agreement isn’t reached by 12:01 a.m. on Friday, Evans isn’t treating the situation like it’s a deadline.
“Midnight isn’t the stop sign,” Evans said. “It’s just another day. We’ve been negotiating for two years strong, but that doesn’t mean anything. If the owners and players decide that we want to continue to negotiate, you negotiate until you come to an impasse. We’re nowhere near an impasse right now.”
Yet there doesn’t appear to be much reason for optimism that a deal will be struck. Evans characterizes the gap between the two parties as “it’s not so much bargaining. It’s demands.”
The Wizards are very much at the heart of what is at stake for the NBA’s future, with an owner in Ted Leonsis who understands the long-term investment required in players — consider a roster, following last week’s draft, that contains eight players with less than two years’ experience. After having spent $310 million to buy the team and even more for Verizon Center, going dark doesn’t seem logical, but not making money is even worse. Leonsis told Comcast SportsNet on Monday the Wizards lost money last year.
“We can’t put together a guarantee that everybody is going to be profitable to the extent that the owners want,” Evans said. “That’s why you invest. It’s a long-term investment. It’s not a short-term return.”
Evans insists that the players have offered ideas and money — including a proposed five-year deal with $100 million a year in salary concessions — that the tone between themselves and the league remains cordial and that no one wants to prove a point.
If it comes to that, it could cost Evans, a free agent, the chance to rejoin a Wizards team that he believes can contend for the seventh or eighth playoff spot in the Eastern Conference next season — if there is one.
“I would love to be a part of it,” Evans said. “I just would love to get a system so we can actually have a season next year.”
