The NBPA presented the assembled team owners with a list of demands to be met before the All Star game would be played: the pension plan, athletic trainers for every team, and the removal of matinee Sunday games after Saturday night games from the schedule. The game was to be the struggling NBA's first live television broadcast, and the league had to this point ignored the NBPA's demands delivered to league offices during the NBA off-season, and repeatedly refusing to meet with or acknowledge executive director Larry Fleisher as the union's authorized bargaining agent. Negotiations stalled with new NBA President Walter Kennedy and the NBP and the league entered a stalemate for most of 1964.ДЄt the 1964 NBA All-Star Game in Boston, the Heinsohn organised a wildcat strike to force the NBA owners to recognise the union's demands. Heinsohn began negotiating a pension plan for players, asking $100 per month for five years of service and $200 per month for 10 years of service for players aged over 65. He was succeeded by Celtics second-year player Tom Heinsohn, who had studied labor relations at university and worked as a pension planner for an insurance company in his day job, and whose father was a union official in Union City, New Jersey. In 1958, however, dismayed at the lack of dues payments by players, Cousy would resign his position from frustration.

Recognition, early successes, stalled negotiations (1957вЂ“1964) ДЄfter formal recognition by the NBA, the NBPA won its players per diem payments and travel expenses and an increase in the playoff pool payment, and the majority of the previously demanded conditions. While back pay for players of folded franchises was granted by Podoloff, the NBA refused to acknowledge the players association or make other changes until Cousy approached the AFL-CIO in 1957 and the players threatened a strike. Cousy and the players sought basic improvements of conditions including being paid for promotional activities, a limit of twenty exhibition games per season, impartial dispute arbitration, and moving expenses for traded players. In 1954, Celtics star point guard Bob Cousy and friend and unofficial agent Joe Sharry canvassed long-tenured players on each of the league's teams by mail, including the fledgling NBA's stars Paul Arizin and Dolph Schayes, and received support from the majority to approach the NBA President Maurice Podoloff.

B association presidents