Stern Sitting out of Rest of Referee Negotiations

If the NBA and the referees’ union decide to sit down at the table and continue negotiations, they will continue without NBA president David Stern.

Referees spokesman Lamell McMorris accused Stern of acting childish and not negotiating in good faith, so Stern removed himself from the process.Stern said Thursday he told McMorris that, “In fact if it was going to get personal—which apparently he’s decided to make it by calling news media and leveling a series of inaccurate allegations—that I would absent myself from the negotiations, which I have.”

Stern is not one to be messed with because he definitely runs the NBA with an iron fist. It is his way or the highway when it comes to these things. But with the referee issues that the NBA has been seeming to run into, the idea of starting the season with replacement referees may make things more shady.