NBA owners-players meet again; further Labour talks to be held next week – Basketball Update
NBA owners and players met for the second consecutive day on Thursday to discuss the ongoing labour dispute. The meeting lasted for around 5 and a half hour but no details were shared with the media, although it was disclosed that more talks are scheduled for next Tuesday.
The NBA and the National Basketball Players Association have been at loggerheads over a new CBA. The league went into lockout on July 1st and talks more or less broke down for the next two months. Now the two sides have started to talk again and seem committed to at least keep the dialogue going as the October deadline for training camps approaches.
Present at the meeting were a handful of representatives from both sides including NBA Commissioner David Stern, NBA Deputy Commissioner Adam Silver, NBPA President Derek Fisher and NBPA Executive Director Billy Hunter among others.
The meeting on Tuesday though will be attended by a larger group in order to speed up the process, it has been revealed. Derek Fisher said the decision was taken with considerations in mind,
"At some point, before you can try and make any attempt at any large progress, you have to involve all the respective members that are ultimately going to make the decisions, so we felt it was best to try to do that at this time and Tuesday we'll give (it) a shot," he said.
Members of the owners' labour relations committee and the union's executive committee will be invited to the next meeting. The NBA Commissioner refused to say whether the talks had moved in a positive direction and progress had been made to prompt the inclusion of more people in the process. He was diplomatic as usual in his remarks to the press,
"I don't really know that it's positive or negative, I just think it's time to bring the parties into the room who are ultimately responsible for either making a deal or deciding that there shouldn't be a deal," Stern said.
The two sides have previously revealed that in order to move the process forward smoothly they will not be revealing too many details to the media. The decision was taken to stem a tirade of accusations made in the public eye by both sides after the lockout that contributed in complicating the process.
It is believed that the next week could also see consecutive days of talks as both the league and the owners look to pick up the pace in the negotiations. There is only a small amount of time left for the negotiations to produce a result as the NBA season draws closer.
Tags: