So much for Chuck's unbridled optimism. Today both sides sat down but got nowhere.
After five hours — most of it spent with each side symbolically huddled amongst themselves, apropos of their deeply entrenched bargaining stances — National Basketball Players Association executive director Billy Hunter and president Derek Fisher warned that it appears the season will not start on time. Hunter said he has advised players that they "may have to sit out half the season before we get a deal."
"We can't come out of here thinking that training camps and preseason are going to start on time," Fisher said.
Commissioner David Stern did not share that dour outlook, saying emphatically that owners would not cancel training camps or preseason games at the Board of Governors meeting in Dallas Thursday. Appropriate to their diametrically opposed positions on changes to the cap system the owners have proposed, each side blamed the other for the breakdown in talks.
This is still a bunch of posturing, so I'm not going to get to wound up about this. Though there are no new talks scheduled at the moment, which has me a little pissed off.
The bottom line is, owners are trying for a radical change to the system, and they're going to stand their ground to get it. Unless someone can soften their stance somehow, then things are not looking good.
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