I wanted to ask Michele Roberts about her reputation as a fighter. In every article I'd read, that very word came up. Fighter. It was always laced with a hint of inevitability, like knuckling up was her default state. We're talking Felix Trinidad level stuff here. For a woman, being defined by sparring skills isn't the norm in profile writing. This is progress, if only because there's another word we often hear in regards to tough women, and it's always wrongheaded or unduly cast.
There's no sign of that word anywhere in regards to her. The real test of that fighter reputation restraint comes later, when the real battles take place. And that's upcoming. (We'll get to it later on in this story, and when the collective bargaining agreement ends in a few years.)
This week marks the debut of the NBA season. If you're thinking to yourself that basketball just ended, well, you're right. With the Draft, NBA free agency and the noisy irrelevance of the FIBA World Cup all happening over the last couple of months, hoops never seemed to go away. On the court, not much has changed. LeBron returned to Cleveland (but you knew that), fingers are crossed on Derrick Rose's rickety knees, and the Spurs are still the Spurs. Off the court, though, there are a few legitimate updates.
There's the NBA's new TV deal with ESPN and Turner, totaling nine years and 24 billion dollars. The new deal starts at the beginning of the '16-'17 season and equates to a staggering 180% jump from the last deal signed in 2007. There are many ripples that will pulsate across the television and sports landscape, but the big news is how this new agreement impacts the CBA (Collective Bargaining Agreement) and thusly how teams and players divide up the waves of money set to flood NBA balance sheets.
As the new Executive Director of the National Basketball Players Association, it's Roberts' job to handle all of this, and it's powder keg.
"My first thought was, That's a lot of money," Roberts says. "I think the world thought it would be a substantially larger amount than the last contract, but I did not view it in the $20 billion range. My second thought was, Well, what does that mean for the players? Then, I also cursed."
Marred by claims of subpar negotiating skills and in-fighting, former director Billy Hunter's reign is best remembered as a time of player ankle grabbing. Things got so bad that Hunter was unanimously voted out in 2013 and then he sued the PA for wrongful termination.
Roberts, a lawyer (and most recently a partner at DC law firm Skadden, Arps, Slate Meagher and Flom,) is the first woman tasked with leading a major North American sports union. The clichés can run amok if you let them, but as far as potential impact, it's fair to say that there's some Lilly Ledbetter stuff here. Roberts wishes it wasn't.
"It's made me pause that there's been so much focus on it. It saddens me a bit, because while I'm aware that women have many ceilings to crack, I guess maybe I had lulled myself into not thinking about it," she says. "I'm keenly aware that a lot of women have an investment in my success and if I needed more motivation to be brilliant, this is it."
Roberts grew up in New York City's South Bronx in the same way most successful people from impoverished areas tend to grow up—defiant in the face of dead dreams. Over time, she built up a reputation—from her time at Wesleyan, UC Berkley Law School and the Washington DC Public Defender's Office, where she spent several years fighting the good fight—as a difference maker with an ability to navigate in difficult settings. It's a rep electrified by her now infamous quote she gave while introducing herself to the players over the summer.
"My past is littered with the bones of men who were foolish enough to think that I was someone they could sleep on."
Well, damn.
That's how she quieted the fears of a room full of NBA players who may have secretly wondered if she was up to snuff. The quote sounds like the opening line of the kind of book that gets turned into a David Fincher movie. It was intended as an opening salvo if anyone, for any reason, thinks she can be bullied.
"Some of the players asked me, Would I be comfortable in a room with white men? And the first time I was asked, I started laughing and I responded, Well what do you think I do all day?," she remembers. "A lot of people don't know what lawyers do. When I represented companies I guarantee you, I was in there against people who believed themselves to be masters of the universe. I got over that a long time ago."
Roberts is typically lawyerly, smooth, likable, but serious, in an I will cross-examine you until your nose bleeds kind of way. Her style of answering questions has a narrator feel to it, one that bounces easily off the walls of her immaculate Harlem office. She's basically Alicia Florrick, The Good Wife, in the flesh. It's that disposition that the NBPA hopes will connect with fans.
The last NBA lockout was in 2011 and there's been talk that if the league and the players can't come to an accord early on, another is coming after the 2016-2017 season. Last time, the players were slaughtered in the PR war. The fight became a millionaires vs. billionaires contest that soured fans on the entire league. Another lockout—or even the threat of one—seems like it would be counterproductive. And yet here we are.
"I don't want a lockout, what kind of union leader would say, Lock my people out! If Adam Silver is correct and honest when he says he doesn't want a lockout, then we have something in common that's substantial," Roberts says. "I don't think the players want one. Having said that, it's not my call. There's going to be a deal, unless the owners decide to blow up this game—and there are 24 billion reasons why that's not going to happen. So we're going to have a deal. If we're stupid enough to allow that deal to be done only after a lockout, well, shame on us."
Will people respond to Roberts and her attempts to recalibrate public opinion? Maybe, but it won't be easy. The narrative that players are greedy is easily digestible for a confused and conditioned fan base. Some of it is jealousy in seeing young people making so much money for what many perceive is a leisure activity. These are often the same people who don't respect that being an athlete can be a "real profession" despite the countless comedians and actors who command similar (if not bigger) salaries. Pro athletes, to them, will always have to carry the burden of not having a real job. That mentality is what Roberts is up against.
"Up until the Clippers sale, I didn't hear anyone talking about how much these teams are worth, but I did hear people touting how much Kobe was being paid and how much LeBron is being paid. I plan to change the narrative by telling the truth," she says. "To the extent that there (could be) a silver lining with Donald Sterling being forced to sell, (it's) that it brought to light what these teams are worth. So crying poverty will no longer be an option available to the league and owners going forward."
There are a bunch of other pressing issues percolating: Draft reform, HGH testing, the embarrassment of the 76ers, and a potential new age limit. Roberts will have many chances to explain her side of every story. She'll speak for over 400 men. She'll be better than the last guy.
