Thursday, January 21. 1999
The University Daily Kansan
Section B · Page 5
NBA lockout officially ends
The Associated Press
NEW YORK — The NBA lockout was officially settled yesterday afternoon, and teams were told they can begin signing players, making trades and opening training camps at 2 p.m. EST today.
"We have an agreement, and we expect to have the deal signed tonight," league spokesman Chris Brienza said.
Teams can immediately begin talking to their players, something that was forbidden since commissioner David Stern and union director Billy Hunter agreed two weeks ago on the terms of a new collective bargaining agreement.
Opening night is Feb. 5, and the NBA is expected to release a new schedule by the end of the week.
"It's just a relief to know it's behind us," new Chicago Bulls coach Tim Floyd said. "We have a chance to sit down and visit with players, talk to players, which is what this is all about."
Yesterday the laborious task of reducing the settlement into written form hit a few last-minute snags after lawyers for the owners and players spent the whole night meeting.
In the meantime, the rumors kept coming and the plots kept twisting as teams maneuvered to get ready for the start of the season.
"It'll get done. It always gets done," agent David Falk said.
"This just gives us more time to talk to people and refine our numbers."
The main sticking point between the sides had been whether the new middle-class
exception can be used for a three-year contract (the league's contention) or a six-year contract (the union's contention).
The union won that argument, but a final snag developed regarding the league's insistence upon
having discipline authority over agents involved in salary cap circumvention. Another snag concerned whether bonus money would be counted in trade calculations.
It was not immediately known how those issues were resolved.
Rod Strickland, meanwhile,
was miffed at the offer the Washington Wizards made. The Washington Post said the Wizards offered $30 million for three years, with two additional years non-guaranteed, and had given Strickland a deadline of midnight yesterday.
"I don't thin he'll be back
"Falk told the Associated
Press, "We're trying to get him to New York. He loves it that they have (Latrell) Sprewell, Allan Houston and Larry Johnson there, and he thinks they can win a championship. I'd like to get him there so Patrick (Ewing) can win a championship."
Falk was exploring other options for Strickland, including several sign-and-trade deals that would send last season's NBA assistant leader to another team. He said four or five teams were making bids, but refused to name anyone other than the Knicks.
Dennis Rodman added a strange subplot to Tuesday's events as his agent. Dwight Manley, announced that Rodman was retiring. Hours later, the league's leading rebounder for the past seven seasons said he was more in a state of "limbo" than retirement.
"I'm not going to play this year," Rodman told Fox Sports News. "I am in limbo, but I'm not going to say I retired."
Also Tuesday, it was learned that John Starks and Chris Mills are the players who will be traded from the Knicks to the Golden State Warriors for Latrell Sprewl. Word of the Sprewl trade got out Monday night, just a few hours after another major trade was revealed — Scottie Pippen from the Chicago Bulls to the Houston Rockets.
That's a stretch
Jeramich Alspaugh, Lansing freshman, wears soda bottle caps in his earlobes to stretch them out. Alspaugh is interested in modern primitive cultures and likes this form of self expression. Photo by Graham K. Johnson/KANSAN
Cheated athletes could receive deserved medals
NEW YORK — The White House will try to have duplicate medals awarded to Olympic athletes known to have lost to competitors using illegal drugs, the federal drug czar said yesterday.
The Associated Press
Barry McCaffrey, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, plans to pursue the matter at next month's world doping summit despite the IOC's recent rejection of at least two similar pleas.
"Our voice should be listened to," he said, noting two-thirds of the International Olympic Committee's revenue comes from U.S. television networks and corporate sponsors.
Last month, the IOC turned down requests from the U.S. Olympic Committee and the British Olympic Association for duplicate medals for swimmers beaten by East Germans in the 1976 and 1980 Games.
Recent testimony in Germany has shown that the winning East German athletes were helped by banned steroids administered as part of a secret government program.
The IOC said it was impossible to rewrite the record books, despite court evidence.
"We need to look at the notion of supplemental medals when it can be proved in the courts where medals were lost to chemically engineered competition," McCaffrey said.
McCaffrey said he had asked USOC president Bill Hybl at a White House meeting yesterday to add 1972 Olympic marathon champion Frank Shorter to his delegation and to the summit in Lausanne, Switzerland. Feb. 2-4.
Shorter is considering pursuit of a second gold medal from the 1976 Olympic marathon, where he finished second to East German's Waldemar Cierpinski. He says evidence from files of the Stasi, the East German secret police, show that Cierpinski also was involved in the doping program, and that information eventually would wind up in court.
"This is a related issue to what is really most important, and that is trying to help the IOC know what is really going on," Shorter said by phone from his Colorado home.
He said his interest in drug issues has been heightened in recent years by the success of his 19-year-old son in distance running at the University of Colorado.
"I want to do everything I can so he feels it's not necessary to resort to illegal drugs to compete and win at a high level," Shorter said.
Last November, McCaffrey's office announced an unprecedented $1 million federal pledge toward research for drug testing in sports. He said yesterday that was a "down payment" on future government action but denied federal funding would be linked to the medals request.
"We are pursuing arguments on an emerging, universal opinion that we have to protect the beliefs of 12-year-olds that you don't have to use drugs and that there will be a level playing field if you choose to compete," he said.
McCaffrey will head a six-member federal delegation to the summit, including representatives of the State Department and the National Institute for Drug Abuse.
He plans to meet with delegations from 10 countries, including China, to form a "common understanding" before the session.
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