At the end of a marathon, 15-hour day of negotiations between NBA owners and players, the two sides had made enough progress that they suggested that a full 82-game season, which would begin in November, remained a possibility if an agreement is reached soon. The two sides focused on salary cap issues, and plan to continue to address that same subject when they resume talks on Thursday.
"We were able to work through a number of different issues today regarding our system," union president Derek Fisher told reporters. "We can't say that major progress was made in any way, but some progress was made on system issues. Obviously enough for us to come back."
According to Yahoo! Sports [1], which cited a source in saying that there was significant progress and that the two sides "need [Thursday] to punch it over [the] end line" in negotiations, union president Billy Hunter said that he "assumes" that a full 82-game NBA regular season remains possible if an agreement is reached by Sunday or Monday. NBA Commissioner David Stern, meanwhile, avoided the question of whether a full 82-game season was possible.
"Whether that gets to be 82 games or not is dependent upon so many things that have to be checked," he said. "We just think we've got to do it soon. ... It's sad that we've missed two weeks, and we're trying to apply a tourniquet and go forward."
For more on the status of talks, click here [2].
Links:
[1] http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=aw-wojnarowski_nba_labor_talks_102711
[2] http://weei.stats.com/nba/story.asp?i=20111026142636796782008
[3] http://www.weei.com/weei/boston/basketball