N.B.A. Bargaining Session Is Long but Not Very Productive
Owners and players parted around 6 p.m., after a seven-and-a-half-hour meeting that, by its duration alone, suggested some movement. There was very little, however, and the parties will take a one-day break before reconvening on Monday, with opening night of the N.B.A. season very much in jeopardy. “We’re still miles apart,” said Billy Hunter, the executive director of the players union. “There’s a huge bridge, gap, that I don’t know if we’re going to be able to close it or not.” At Hunter’s suggestion, the parties focused solely on the salary-cap system on Saturday, for the first time “decoupling” that issue from the thornier subject of dividing revenue. While they kept the details vague, they are moving toward common ground, now that the owners have dropped their demand for a strict, hard cap. The challenge is how to construct a model that provides owners with a sufficient <a href="http://www.ghdonsaleonline.com"><strong>ghd sale</strong></a> drag on payrolls without creating a de facto hard cap. “We’re not near anything,” Stern said. “But wherever that is, we’re closer than we were before.” Stern has already canceled a week of preseason games, 43 in all, and will soon have to wipe out a second week if no agreement is reached. He would not make that move official Saturday. The start of the regular season, scheduled to begin Nov. 1, is also at risk if no deal is reached in the coming week. Stern had vowed “enormous consequences” for failing to make a deal this weekend, but he backed away from that declaration. “I don’t take myself as seriously as you do,” Stern told reporters. “I apologize. It’s good that we had the players and the owners here and that we could vet a lot of things.” He added: “If we didn’t think there was any hope, we wouldn’t be scheduling the meetings. But that’s the best that I would say right now.” The sides are taking Sunday off, Hunter said, “because I generally don’t work on Sundays; I go to church on Sundays.” Negotiators also took Thursday off <a href="http://www.uggscheap-sale.com/ugg-bailey-button-c-98.html"><strong>ugg boots sales</strong></a> in observance of Rosh Hashanah. In between, they spent nearly 13 hours together in a hotel conference room, in sometimes heated discussion. Stern and Dwyane Wade, the Miami Heat star, had a testy exchange Friday, with Wade shouting at the commissioner, according to various reports. Stern and others lightheartedly acknowledged the flare-up and said the room was calmer Saturday. “I guess you can call that one unusual,” Derek Fisher, the union president, said of the Wade-Stern clash. Although the tenor remained passionate Saturday, Fisher said, “It’s just that it wasn’t as passionate or boisterous as that.” There were also fewer voices in the room. Wade and most of the other star players left New York after Friday’s meeting, reducing the player contingent to about 10, from a high of 23. Paul Pierce was the only marquee player remaining. Nine owners were present. On Monday, the talks will be reduced to the previous three-on-three format that has, to this point, proved more <a href="http://www.ghdonsaleonline.com/ghd-2010-new-purple-indulgence-p-8.html"><strong>ghd midnight</strong></a> productive. “When you’ve got 40, 50 people in the room, it’s kind of difficult,” Hunter said. “We probably spent as much time caucusing outside the room with our respective groups than we did inside the room actually talking. Because when we’re inside, things sometimes get a bit tense.” The full committees will meet again Tuesday to see if the full regular season can be saved.
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