NBPA executive director doesn’t see Friday as ‘drop dead date’

NBPA executive director Michele Roberts doesn’t see Friday as a date that is set in stone for the players to improve a new plan.

Friday is the current deadline for the NBA and the NBPA to agree to changes to the current collective bargaining agreement, including financial adjustments and other modifications to the schedule for the 2020-21 season. Reports for the past week have pegged a start date just before Christmas Day as the scenario the NBA’s Board of Governors, but from the words from NBPA executive director Michele Roberts to The Athletic’s Shams Charania, expecting an agreement to come on Friday is a little unlikely.

“The union and the players are analyzing all of the information and will not be rushed,” Roberts told The Athletic. “We have requested and are receiving data from the parties involved and will work on a counterproposal as expeditiously as possible. I have absolutely no reason to believe that we will have a decision by Friday. I cannot and will not view Friday as a drop dead date.”

Reports coming from earlier this week on the player’s side indicated a significant portion of the players, including stars, were pushing for a start to the season on January 18, Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

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