NBA owners-players leadership set to meet Thursday – Lockout Update
A small contingent from the NBA owners and players met on Wednesday in New York in order set the base for another round of talks over the labour dispute. Although, no details of the meeting were given, a meeting on Thursday is
expected to go ahead.
The meeting held today did not have any big decision makers present from both sides. NBA Commissioner David Stern and Deputy Commissioner Adam Silver stayed away from the session on the owners’ side. Similarly, NBPA President Derek
Fisher and Executive Director Billy Hunter did not participate for the players.
The meeting on Thursday will see a return of the big boys to the negotiating table for the first time after the meeting last Tuesday, which did not end well. Both sides described that meeting as “disappointing” and even seemed
angry at one another’s rigidity in their respective stances.
Deputy Commissioner Adam Silver seemed particularly frustrated at the players’ demand of a soft salary cap as precondition to continue the negotiations. To be fair, the players did say they were willing to make “significant” concessions
in the economic details if granted the salary cap they desired.
It is not clear where negotiations will pick up from Thursday, or whether one side or the other will be willing to make a compromise in order o move the negotiations further. Key economists and legal counsels from both sides are
also expected to be present in the meeting to be held in New York.
It would be the first back to back meeting between the two sides after they met on consecutive days earlier this month. Those meetings were hailed in the basketball community and gave hope to fans that a deal could be reached in
time to save the season, before it all came crashing down last Tuesday.
Now the owners and players have a race against time to get a deal done, at least in principle, by next week, ten days max. The NBA training camps are scheduled to start October 3rd and most analysts have written them
off already, even if the two sides make a breakthrough this week.
The training camps will at least be delayed because of the time it is bound to take to iron out all the differences between NBA owners and the players’ union. What fans are hoping for is a timely start to the NBA season, which
is scheduled for November.
There is still time, though very little of it, to stop games from being lost. The last time the league went into a lockout because of the CBA issue, games were lost and the season was shortened to 50-games instead of the usual
82 games.
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