From Nov 7 "One man's forecast on what happens next in the NBA's labor mess: • Sources close to the process say leaders of the decertification movement -- with Boston Celtics star Paul Pierce most noticeably at the forefront -- can and will find the required 130-ish players needed to sign a petition to vote on decertification by Monday or Tuesday. And that's when the clock would really start in terms of saving the season … unless you believe that the league is truly prepared to take the villainous step of canceling the season if there's no deal by Wednesday. (For the record: I don't believe that.) • After the petition to vote on decertification is filed, there would be an estimated 45 days from that point -- while the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) rules on whether a decertification vote should actually take place -- for the union and league to keep negotiating. The union is not immediately dissolved and it is during those 45 days, sources say, that decertification backers believe that the owners can be nudged away from the hard-line stance they've maintained for four months. And here's why: Decertification by no means guarantees success for the players, but the prospect of taking this dispute to the courts injects a level of uncertainty into proceedings that they believe makes the league side nervous after it held virtually 100 percent of the leverage to this point. Fear of the unknown and all that. "Decertification is risky and messy [for the players]," says one backer, "but it's the only thing that scares the owners. Because then they lose total control." " Read more: http://proxy.espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/33087/what-decertification-vote-would-mean
