No Deal Yet: NBA Labor Talks to Resume Monday

A hastily-arranged 11th hour meeting between League and Union officials last night didn’t yield a deal, so the two sides will reconvene today (self-imposed deadline day!) in New York. From the AP: “NBA players and owners still have no deal headed into the deadline for starting the season on time. Negotiators for the sides met for more than five hours Sunday before breaking for the night. They are scheduled to return Monday afternoon. ‘We’re not necessarily any closer than we were going in tonight, but we’ll be back at it tomorrow and we’ll keep putting time in,’ union president Derek Fisher of the Lakers. If they can’t come to a deal then, NBA Commissioner David Stern has said the first two weeks of the regular season will be canceled. It is scheduled to begin Nov. 1. Neither side offered any specifics, but a person with knowledge of the talks told The Associated Press that they did not discuss the split of revenues, perhaps the biggest issue dividing them. The person was granted anonymity because the details were supposed to remain private. When they last met on Tuesday, league officials asked the union if they would consider a 50-50 split of basketball-related revenues. The players, guaranteed 57 percent under the previous collective bargaining agreement, rejected that and said they were not prepared to go below 53 percent. The salary cap system is the other big issue remaining. Fisher also said the union would postpone a regional meeting scheduled for Monday in Los Angeles so he and other officials could remain in New York for more talks.”