Comments from Jeffrey Kessler, lead attorney for the NBPA, drew a furious response from David Stern.

“To present that in the context of ‘take it or leave it,’ in our view, that is not good faith,” Kessler said in a telephone interview Monday night. “Instead of treating the players like partners, they’re treating them like plantation workers.”

“Kessler’s agenda is always to inflame and not to make a deal,” Stern said, “even if it means injecting race and thereby insulting his own clients. . . . He has been the single most divisive force in our negotiations and it doesn’t surprise me he would rant and not talk about specifics. Kessler’s conduct is routinely despicable.”