NBA Players and owners talk for seven hours on Saturday; another meeting scheduled for Monday
The NBA owners and players met to discuss the labour dispute on Saturday, in a meeting significant enough for another session to be pencilled in on Monday. The NBA Commissioner David Stern headed the owners’ contingent while the
players were represented by NBPA Executive Director Billy Hunter and President Derek Fisher.
The meeting lasted a marathon 7 hours, during which, both sides came forward with a number of suggestions. They were though, unable to resolve the core issues of the NBA lockout. The owners and players came out of the meeting with
little positivity to talk about, but did express a resolve to keep talking next week.
"I wouldn't say there was any progress. What happened was, they put some concepts up, we put some concepts up, and we're still miles apart,'' Billy Hunter said. ``There's a huge bridge, gap, that I don't know if we're going to
be able to close it or not.''
The NBA lockout began on July 1st and is now over 3 months old. The league and players have met frequently over that period, especially during last month, but have failed to produce any reasonable progress towards a
solution.
The training camps for the NBA have already been cancelled, along with 43 pre-season games and with the start of the league scheduled for November 1st; there are widespread fears that the two sides would not be able
to resolve their dispute in time to save the season.
Commissioner David Stern admitted that time was short, but said there were genuine reasons for why the process was taking so long.
"Our desire would be to not cancel, and we had been hopeful that this weekend would be a broader marker, but for reasons which we understand, the players suggested that we resume on Monday, and we said 'fine,''' Stern said.
He also assured NBA fans that the owners and players had not wasted their time with the meetings. Stern was of the belief that the long deliberations were part of the process and having gone through the meetings can only have a
good effect, although he was at a loss to quantify it.
``We're not near anything, but wherever that is, we're closer than we were before.'' The Commissioner said.
On Monday, the session will be headed by smaller groups, with only the higher ups present as the sides try to regain some momentum in the talks. This session will be followed by another one on Tuesday, which is to be attended by
larger groups from both sides.
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