Whether it was due to anti-trust or just a lack of trust, here are ten cases where the NBA league office had to defend itself in the court of law
1) Donald Sterling (2014)
Just a few months after taking over the commissionership from David Stern, Adam Silver had to deal with one of the weirdest sagas in NBA history, which that ended with the largest lawsuit ever levied against the league. Sterling spent much of his adulthood doing despicable and arguably racist things and in April of 2014 some direct evidence was finally caught on tape and released to the public. The immediate disgust regarding Sterling's racist tirade was swift and palpable thanks to the newly minted social media age. Players, coaches, celebrities, politicians, and average Joes alike all piled on, just as Sterling's Clippers were locked in a tough first round playoff series. When players from both the Clippers, and their postseason opponent the Warriors threatened to boycott games, Silver quickly acted, fining Sterling $2.5 million and banning him from the NBA for life. The embattled magnate seemed initially contrite and repentant, authorizing his wife and team co-owner Shelly to sell the franchise. But just as Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmar's two billion offer was ready to be accepted, Sterling suddenly reneged on his concession and sued the NBA for half the sale price. He continually flip-flopped from there, with his attorney announcing days later that the lawsuit was going to be dropped, and then Sterling himself stating the exact opposite soon after. Shelly began to claim that Donald was suffering Alzheimer's and he responded by making threats (caught on tape, no less; the guy obviously isn't a quick learner) against the doctors and lawyers involved. He also reportedly hired a slew of private investigators to dig up dirt on Silver and other league executives. The lawsuit was eventually quietly settled in 2016, with the terms never released.
2) Oscar Robertson (1970)
Considering the historical context and the competitive, cultural, and financial ramifications which are still being felt to this day, Robertson's court case was arguably the most important in American pro sports history. Two full years before Curt Flood took on Major League Baseball, Robertson sued the NBA, claiming the reserve clause that restricted free agency was unfair. It's no coincidence that he was the one to do it. A long-time proponent of free agency and the U.S. civil rights movement, Robertson spearheaded the near-boycott of the 1964 All-Star Game and soon after took over as president of the Players' Association. His motivation was partly social justice and partly his own unique circumstances, stuck for his entire career to that point on a Cincinnati Royals team with cheap, apathetic management and an overtly racist fanbase. The lawsuit was levied in 1970 specifically to stop the impending NBA-ABA merger, as signing with an ABA team was one of the few recourses for disgruntled or discarded NBA players. Robertson ultimately won, though with some significant caveats. The merger was delayed for six years, and several franchises such as the Kentucky Colonels and Utah Stars were left out when they may have otherwise become NBA franchises. Free agency was instituted by the NBA in 1974 (before the lawsuit was settled) but it was restricted, with teams forced to essentially trade draft picks in exchange for free agent signees (unrestricted free agency would come in 1988). And though player salaries increased exponentially immediately following the suit being won by Robertson in 1976, the star point guard himself could not take advantage. He was finally traded by the Royals to the Bucks the same summer he filed the lawsuit and won a title in 1971 before retiring in 1974 without ever taking advantage himself of free agency.
3) Spencer Haywood (1971)
One year after Oscar Robertson changed the landscape of veteran player contracts, Haywood made almost as much impact by challenging the NBA on draft entry regulations. At the time Haywood finished his dominating prep career at Pershing High School in Detroit in 1967, draft eligibility in both the NBA and the newly formed ABA was only available to players four years removed from their high school graduating class. The NCAA additionally had a rule barring freshmen from joining Division I varsity teams. Thus, Haywood bided his team, playing one season at Trinidad Junior College in Colorado, starring for the 1968 U.S. Olympic team in Mexico, then spending a year at Detroit Mercy. A pro opportunity presented itself in 1969, when the ABA introduced a "financial hardship" rule allowing Haywood to sign with the Denver Rockets (Haywood had grown up in poverty with a single mother, one of the main motivating factors in his interest in joining the pro ranks early). He was a revelation in the ABA at age 20, winning MVP, Rookie of the Year, and the scoring title, but quickly realized that he had been screwed over by Rockets management, signing a contract that was mostly tied up in annuities that would take decades to pay out. Sonics owner Sam Schulman sensed an opportunity to swoop in and after several failed attempts to legally sign Haywood (including trying to broker an accelerated merger of the NBA and ABA), he went ahead and did it anyway against regulations. As expected, this set off a flurry of legal activities, culminating with Haywood, with Schulman's financial backing, filing an anti-trust lawsuit against the NBA. He was allowed to take the floor for Seattle (often to a flurry of boos and threats from opposing fans) as the case made its way all the way up to the Supreme Court, which ruled that the NBA couldn't bar Haywood from joining the league. The league soon instituted its own version of the "hardship" clause and then, after the NBA-ABA merger in 1976, revoking the draft eligibility age rule altogether. Haywood have five exceptional seasons with the Sonics but this was hardly a happy ending for him. He still had to deal with a lawsuit from the ABA claiming he was in violation of contract (Schulman helped him settle it out of court) and near universal shunning by his peers, fans, and the media who felt that he had sullied the sanctity of the sport.
4) Washington Professional Basketball Corporation (1955)
5) American Basketball Association (1969, 1972, 1974)
Where Oscar Robertson and Spencer Haywood challenged the NBA on its anti-trust exemption and won, two ownership groups were not so lucky in their own attempts. The first people ever to legally call out the NBA on its violations of the Sherman Act were a group of business professionals from Washington, D.C. Disappointed that the Washington Capitols were forced to fold in 1951 despite having reached the NBA Finals two years prior, the Washington Professional Basketball Corporation was formed to restore pro basketball in the nation's capital. After several years of fruitless attempts to lure a franchise to relocate to the city, the group lobbied the NBA for a new expansion franchise and were immediately denied. They filed a one million dollar lawsuit against the league, claiming that they possessed a letter from commissioner Maurice Podoloff promising a new franchise in D.C. Though the court ruled that the NBA was in violation of the Sherman Act, the suit was still thrown out due to lack of proof of the supposed letter. The WPBC threatened to start a new rival basketball league, but never made good on it. Washington eventually did get a franchise in 1973, when the Bullets (now Wizards) moved 40 miles south from Baltimore.
12 years after the WPBC fizzled out, a different rival basketball league did manage to sprout. Formed by a group of owners with a main intent of eventually merging with the NBA, the ABA began play in 1967 and just two years later was already trying to take the senior league to court. The lawsuit claimed that the NBA was hoarding talent and stifling competition through both its draft system and a systemic process of "blacklisting" players that opted to sign with the ABA. Though the lawsuit never actually made it into the court system, it prompted the NBA to begin serious discussions about a merger. Those negotiations broke down in 1970 when Oscar Robertson's lawsuit was filed, and in 1972 the ABA filed an anti-trust suit again, this time seeking 300 million dollars in damages. Congress got involved with a bill introduced in 1973 that would have allowed a merger and abolished the reserve clause, but the NBA successfully lobbied to shut it down. The ABA revived the lawsuit one last time in 1974 and asked for an injunction on the NBA signing college players. When the merger was finally brokered in 1976, the ABA suit was subsequently settled. By then the NBA had pushed an agreement to treat the merger as an "expansion" instead, with terms that heavily weighed against the ABA, such as the merging teams being denied TV revenues for three seasons.
6) Jack Molinas (1958)
7) Connie Hawkins (1966)
8) Doug Moe (1969)
9) Roger Brown (1969)
Banned for life from the NBA in 1954 for betting on games while playing for the Pistons, Molinas admitted wrongdoing and signed a confession to avoid jail time. He decided to then sue commissioner Maurice Podoloff anyway, alleging that he violated league bylaws by not granting Molinas a proper hearing. That case was thrown out almost immediately, as the court ruled that Molinas' signed confession was sufficient grounds for the league to ban him. Four years later Molinas tried again, this time filing suit against the league itself, contending that the NBA's anti-trust exemption was denying him the ability to earn a living playing basketball. Molinas lost again, this time for lack of evidence that the anti-trust laws were being violated.
In 1961 Molinas found himself entwined in another gambling controversy. This time he was no longer a player but was orchestrating a point shaving operation at 27 different colleges which would unfairly derail the careers and reputations of many athletes. The three most notable casualties were Connie Hawkins, Doug Moe, and Roger Brown. Hawkins admitted to accepting a loan from Molinas (which he quickly repaid), but both men plus everyone else involved in the scandal swore that Hawkins never actually participated in point shaving. He was nonetheless kicked off his Iowa team and banned from joining the NBA. After stints in the ABL and with the Globetrotters, Hawkins finally sued the NBA in 1966, claiming that the league was unjustly blacklisting him. Hawkins played in the ABA until the suit was finally settled in 1969, and he was allowed to sign with the Phoenix Suns. Moe and Brown took note of Hawkins' victories, and the two fellow ABA stars filed their own lawsuits against the NBA. Moe, who admitted to meeting with the game fixers but never actually participating, had actually been drafted by the Chicago Packers in 1961 but the NBA disbarred the team from signing him. After taking several odd jobs and doing a stint in the U.S. Army, Moe spent several years in the ABA and was playing for the Carolina Cougars when he filed suit. Brown had a similar story, with only a minor association with Hawkins getting him banned from the NCAA and NBA, so he moonlighted playing semi-pro ball for years while working full time on a General Motors assembly line, before joining the Indiana Pacers for their inaugural season in 1967. Though all three players won their lawsuits and had their NBA eligibility reinstated, only Hawkins went on to join the league. Moe and Brown opted to spend their remaining careers in the ABA, the only pro league that would accept them initially. Moe did eventually have a successful career in the NBA as a coach, while Hawkins and Brown are enshrined in the Hall of Fame.
10) National Basketball Players Association (1962, 1978, 1982, 1987, 1995 and 2011)
Ever since it was founded in 1954 by Bob Cousy, making it the oldest major pro sports union in America, the NBPA has had a mostly contentious relationship with owners and the league office, who refused to even officially acknowledge the union until three years after its charter. For the first time players were given per diem and traveling expenses, and paid for their promotional appearances on radio and TV. After Cousy stepped down as union president and his Celtics teammate Tom Heinsohn took over, the NBPA became more aggressive, specifically in regards to securing a pension plan. When the owners agreed theoretically to a pension but failed to actually deliver, Heinsohn took the first of many legal actions in NBPA history by hiring an attorney and filing suit against the league. Commissioner Walter Kennedy finally gave in when several marquee players, led by Bill Russell and Oscar Robertson, threatened to boycott the nationally broadcast 1964 All-Star Game unless a pension was established. It was an early victory for the NBPA but would hardly become the standard in their labor and legal relationship with the league. As the sport of basketball grew and the money in play increased exponentially, it only served to expand the powers of ownership. Meanwhile, strong early labor leaders like Heinsohn and Robertson became increasingly rare, as the plight of highly-paid athletes became a tough sell in the court of public opinion. Robertson's individual lawsuit that prevented a NBA-ABA merger for six years was arguably the last major victory for the NBPA. There were still some small moments of triumph. In 1978, when Marvin Webster left Seattle for the Knicks as a free agent, the two teams failed to reach an agreement on proper compensation and the case was brought before Lawrence O'Brien. The commish awarded the Sonics Lonnie Shelton (a future All-Star), a 1979 first round pick, and $450,000 cash. Finding the compensation excessive for Webster, the NBPA sued and won, with the independent Special Master arbitrating a slighter renumeration package for Seattle. It was a relatively minor case in a vacuum, but a huge win for the players association that set the precedence of using the courts system as a check-and-balance against the league office and owners.
Despite an influx of profit and interest with Magic Johnson and Larry Bird hitting the league running, the NBA still had a major financial catastrophe hanging over its head in the early '80s. With several franchises - Cleveland, Utah, Kansas City, and Indiana - falling behind on payments to players, and the CBA negotiations taking a sour turn, the players association filed suit against the owners in 1982, with Pistons star and union president Bob Lanier named as the lead plaintiff. The point of the lawsuit was to prevent the owners from establishing a salary cap outside of the collective bargaining agreement, and the players additionally threatened a strike. The court ruled in favor of the players, and the owners were forced to renegotiate the CBA, adding a guarantee that players would receive a set percentage of revenue (based on minimum and maximum salary caps) and a guarantee of a minimum amount of player jobs, meaning that the league couldn't retract teams. Though the popularity of the sport increased throughout the decade, the 1987 CBA negotiations brought about another player lawsuit, claiming that the salary cap, multi-round draft system and right of first refusal rule violated anti-trust laws. The NBPA then decertified in order for the league to be subject to anti-trust laws, and once again the owners' hands were forced, leading to a new CBA in 1988 that included a reduction of the draft (to the modern two rounds system) and the abolition of right of first refusal. Negotiations were again contentious in 1995, and this time some of the league's biggest stars like Patrick Ewing and Michael Jordan were the public faces of the NBPA. A lawsuit in Ewing's name was thrown out when the players voted not to de-certify, and the owners imposed a lockout. Though the players made a lot of concessions in the final deal, they did receive the rookie salary cap, which proved to be a financial boon for upcoming rookie stars like Kevin Garnett and Kobe Bryant.
Unhappy with labor negotiations in 2011, the NBA owners instituted another lockout and the players association sued for the first time in nearly two decades to try to bring the owners and league office back to the bargaining table. The tactic worked, as negotiations did resume just a couple weeks later and an agreement was quickly reached. But despite a few favorable privileges for the players, the agreement was, as usual, owner friendly. It was a clear demarcation of how much the power has shifted in the 60 years since the NBPA was first formed. When the NBPA was created, the owners were basically monarchs, doing whatever they pleased. Then the union became so strong in the ‘60s thanks to the efforts of Oscar Robertson and others that for over two decades the players were in control of the bargaining process, able to mostly “win” every CBA negotiation. Then, starting in the ‘90s, things completely shifted and now the owners are in total control again, making lockouts inevitable. Somewhere along the way a cognitive dissonance grew, where the average outside observer found it easier to sympathize with billionaire owners than with millionaire players. Unless a sea change happens in American attitudes towards labor, that mindset will color NBA union negotiations for years to come.