{"id":873886,"date":"2026-08-27T23:40:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T23:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/873886\/"},"modified":"2026-08-27T23:40:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T23:40:09","slug":"nbpa-chief-players-have-serious-problem-with-nba-europe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/873886\/","title":{"rendered":"NBPA Chief: Players Have ‘Serious Problem’ With NBA Europe"},"content":{"rendered":"

In an interview with Baker Machado of Front Office Sports (YouTube link<\/a>), new National Basketball Players Association executive director David Kelly said the union has a \u201cserious problem\u201d with NBA players not receiving a portion of the revenue generated by NBA Europe, which is expected to launch ahead of the 2027\/28 season.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s clearly being built on the backs of current NBA players, and prior NBA players, on the whole cachet that they brought to this league. And then to start a rival league that they do not participate in, participate in the economics of, we have a very serious problem with that,\u201d Kelly said, per Colin Salao of Front Office Sports<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnder the current CBA, arguably they can do it. Under the next CBA \u2026 they would not be able to if we negotiate it the way we want to negotiate.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Salao writes, Kelly argued that players should receive a portion of the revenue from NBA Europe, since it will be generating \u201cbasketball-related income.\u201d NBA players currently receive 49 to 51 percent of the NBA\u2019s basketball-related income \u2014 Kelly doesn\u2019t think the union should receive that high of a percentage from NBA Europe, but he believes there\u2019s a \u201cgood faith\u201d amount that makes sense for both the league and the NBPA.<\/p>\n

Kelly, who took over as executive director in July after spending the past year as managing director and general counsel for the NBPA, reiterated that the union hasn\u2019t spoken to the NBA about possibly opting out of the current collective bargaining agreement in October 2028, which would terminate the CBA after the 2028\/29 campaign. But he did say there have been informal talks about some issues the NBPA has.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s just pleasant conversations at this point in time laying out some of what our issues are,\u201d Kelly said. \u201cBut when it comes time to actually negotiate the CBA, we are very firm on some of the things that are important and that need to change.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kelly made<\/a> it clear<\/a> two separate times last month that the union is opposed to the second tax apron rules in the current CBA. He confirmed that opposition again in his interview with Front Office Sports.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are no fan of the second apron. I would say there is no fan of the second apron. Maybe there\u2019s 30 or 31, if you include Adam (Silver),\u201d Kelly said, referring to the owners and commissioner. \u201cI think it\u2019s pretty clear that (the second apron has made it) harder to keep teams together.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe league will say that\u2019s part of the reason why they put it in place \u2014 they think that it\u2019s necessary for parity. I would point to the fact that there was parity before the second apron was put into existence,\u201d Kelly said.<\/p>\n

Silver has indeed repeatedly touted the fact that there have been eight different champions over the past eight years, but Kelly noted the second apron has only been in place for the past three seasons. Kelly added that he\u2019s a fan of parity, which he believes was possible in the previous CBA.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a very good system that was working. The league was able to negotiate the NBA TV deal under the prior system. I think parity was the excuse that was used to put in something that\u2019s really about cost control,\u201d Kelly said, according to Salao.<\/p>\n

While Kelly said players have the right to make whatever decision they think is best in terms of the types of contracts they\u2019re willing to sign, he said the second apron has unduly impacted players rather than owners.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe system puts all of that weight on the player because the ownership has made clear that they\u2019re not going past the second apron because of all of these parade of horribles that happen if you go past the second apron,\u201d Kelly said.<\/p>\n

Kelly\u2019s interview with Machado also touched on the new \u201c3-2-1\u201d draft lottery system, which the NBA implemented in an effort to dissuade tanking. Kelly credited Silver for making such a significant change, but he\u2019s not sure whether it will actually result in the changes the league was hoping.<\/p>\n

\u201cGlad to see the league address it,\u201d Kelly said. \u201cWe had some other measures that we think the league could have looked at in order to address tanking. If this works, great, no pride in authorship. If this doesn\u2019t, we\u2019ll be retabling some of the ideas that we had.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In an interview with Baker Machado of Front Office Sports (YouTube link), new National Basketball Players Association executive…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":873887,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,303340,459,82],"class_list":["post-873886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-david-kelly","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=873886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/873886\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/873887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=873886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=873886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=873886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}