By Leobert Julian A. de la Peña
With no final decision yet as to the resumption of basketball operations, NBA commissioner Adam Silver and the rest of the committee came up to a decision in response to their shutdown.
The NBA and the NBA Players Association announced Friday afternoon that they have reached an agreement on 25 percent pay cuts for all players starting May 15 in the event the league has to cancel regular season and/or playoff games.
The decision was in line with the Collective Bargaining Agreement between the NBA and its players, describing it as a “Force Majeure Event”, the term used for unexpected events such as an epidemic or pandemic.
Under the Agreement, players could lose 1.08% of their annual salary for each game that will be canceled.
“Revenues, in essence, have dropped to zero. That’s having a huge financial impact on team business and arena business,” commissioner Silver said.
Silver then added that the league is still weighing the many factors that may affect not only the players but also the employees and the team owners.
“All these team owners are in this business because they love the game. They love the competition, and I know from my conversations with players they feel the same way. But when you’re dealing with human life, that trumps anything else we could possibly talk about. That’s really where the conversation began and ended today,” commissioner Silver said in his closing remarks. (With a report from Yahoo! Sports)