Your Morning Dump… The players hope decertification is their secret weapon

Every morning, we compile the links of the day and dump them here… highlighting the big storyline. Because there's nothing quite as satisfying as a good morning dump.

With a Wednesday deadline looming to accept the league's latest labor proposal, NBA Players Association officials have summoned the player representatives from all 30 teams to New York for a mandatory meeting Tuesday to update them on negotiations, according to sources with knowledge of the union's plans.

But NBPA sources reiterated Sunday that the executive board remains unwilling to present that offer to the union's estimated 450 members for a vote and plans to make that stance clear to team player reps at the meeting.

Sources told ESPN.com that union leaders have not budged from the view that the NBA's offer is "unacceptable," just as NBPA president Derek Fisher described it in the wee hours of Sunday morning once Saturday's marathon bargaining session finally ended.

On Monday, meanwhile, sources say that the players and agents backing the decertification of the union have scheduled another conference call to follow the two conference calls — each with at least 50 players dialed in — that took place last week.

ESPN – NBPA to debrief player reps

Today Derek Fisher will inform all player reps of the horrible offer presented by the owners. The plan is to move forward with decertification. The NBPA hopes the filing of the decertification petition will be enough to "scare" the owners back to the bargaining table.

As for the owners:

Front office officials of two teams say owners returned from Saturday meeting telling staff to prepare for strong possibility of no season

We know. The season is in jeopardy. The owners have been making this threat for months. No need to keep reminding us.

The rest of the links:

Yahoo! – Magic Johnson is HIV positive | ESPN – When Magic defined tragice, 20 years later

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