ORLANDO, Fla. -- NBA commissioner David Stern has always insisted that business was upbeat, even when his owners were claiming losses of more than $1 billion in the three-year march toward the recent lockout. But this time the news really was good. As Stern reported Saturday night during All-Star weekend, NBA ratings and attendance have gone up in spite of the lockout and inconsistency of play enforced by the condensed schedule.
NEW YORK -- After an exhausting, 149-day work stoppage that threatened to wipe out the first full season in NBA history, the league's owners and players agreed to a tentative new collective bargaining agreement, commissioner David Stern and union executive director Billy Hunter announced early Saturday.
On the 133rd day of the lockout, commissioner David Stern called the players' bluff: Are you going to accept the new era for the NBA, or are you going to decertify?
"The current offer on the table from the NBA is one that we cannot accept."
At long last, the NBA looks forward to a day of promise. For the first time since Dirk Nowitzki's Mavericks finished off LeBron James' Heat in the NBA Finals four months ago, the league is within reach of rescuing itself from ruin.
Of all the people who could have walked through the lobby at the latest NBA lockout meeting, none other than actor Bill Murray was said to be seen at the New York hotel where the fate of the season was being determined yet again.
Adam Silver tried. Give him that much.
NEW YORK -- Just past 9 p.m. on Monday, minutes after a seven-hour collective-bargaining session between the NBA and the players' association had wrapped, a solemn David Stern emerged and delivered the bad news: The first two weeks of the regular season had been canceled. Later, as deputy commissioner Adam Silver, union president Derek Fisher, executive director Billy Hunter and outside counsel Jeffrey Kessler addressed the media, there was a palpable sense that these would not be the last cancellations, either.
NEW YORK -- Late Tuesday afternoon, following more than three hours of mostly fruitless collective bargaining negotiations, NBA commissioner David Stern, deputy commissioner Adam Silver and San Antonio Spurs owner Peter Holt approached the union representatives with an informal offer. According to the NBA, that offer -- made to union attorney Jeffrey Kessler, president Derek Fisher and players Kobe Bryant and Kevin Garnett -- was for a straight 50-50 split of all basketball-related income, under the current definition of BRI.
What more is left to say? Neither side has appeared willing to make the major concessions that its opponent has demanded during these heightened NBA labor talks.
NEW YORK -- The threatened "enormous consequences'' have yet to appear, but they will be revealed soon enough. Two days of extended negotiations concluded Saturday with little optimism that the NBA owners and players can end their lockout in time to rescue the full 82-game schedule.
NEW YORK -- No deal is imminent, and ending the lockout may not be possible in time to save a full 82-game season. So went the sobering message that was delivered between the lines Friday, at the end of the first day of a long weekend of NBA lockout negotiations.
The announcement Friday that the NBA has postponed training camp and canceled preseason games through Oct. 15 is not much in the way of news. The moves were expected and will have little impact financially.
With time running out for the start of the NBA season to be saved, the labor talks will resume on Wednesday in New York.
There's a big bout in Las Vegas next weekend, when undefeated Floyd Mayweather will come out of a 16-month hiatus to take on young up-and-comer Victor Ortiz.
The NBA and National Basketball Players' Association have agreed to meet again next week, according to two sources close to the situation.
NEW YORK -- "It's good that we're meeting."
The NBA says a lockout will be enforced until there is a new collective bargaining agreement.
Unless the NBA owners and players are suddenly able to agree on how to resolve a difference of opinion worth hundreds of millions of dollars annually, the players are going to be locked out Friday and the 2011-12 season will be officially put at risk.
Billy Hunter emerged from these laborious labor talks with rare optimism, even picking the word "hopeful" to describe the chances of his National Basketball Players Association and the NBA landing a new collective bargaining agreement before a lockout ensues July 1.
It took 10 minutes, six questions and a run through a surprisingly large contingent of Sacramento media for NBA commissioner David Stern and deputy commissioner Adam Silver to address the league's ongoing labor situation on Friday.
It was the closest thing to banter during NBA commissioner David Stern's preseason taping for The Charlie Rose Show, a momentary step back from the relaxed questions and answers of the Emmy Award-winning interviewer's signature conversations:
The full brunt of the nation's economic tailspin won't be felt in the NBA until we begin to see foreclosures on luxury suites. At about that time, some team will acquire Nate Robinson and Earl Boykins in a misguided attempt at downsizing.
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