NBA owners, union to talk through weekend

With negotiations scheduled to run through the coming weekend, David Stern said Wednesday there are "enormous consequences at play" if progress is not achieved between the NBA and its players union. The NBA commissioner didn't need to elaborate that the start of the regular season, scheduled for Nov. 1, would be in jeopardy.

The sides met for five hours at an Upper East Side hotel and emerged without a deal, but with the intention to reconvene Friday, after the Rosh Hashanah holiday, and continue through the weekend.

"It would be hard to characterize us as having made progress," deputy commissioner Adam Silver said. "I guess it's always progress to the extent that we're still talking and we all know that's the predicate to getting a deal done."

When asked if the sides are still very far apart, Stern replied, "We're not near a deal."

After spending consecutive days negotiating in a small group session, with just the leaders and attorneys present, the talks this weekend will be opened to a large group setting. The union called in the rest of its nine-man executive committee, which is headed by president Derek Fisher, to rejoin the negotiations, while the NBA will have the 11 owners from its labor relations committee, which includes Knicks owner James Dolan.

Also expected to attend are several star players, including Knicks forward Carmelo Anthony, Dwyane Wade and LeBron James.

"I think the idea is to bring in the principal parties that are going to make the decision of whether or not this thing will move forward or not," Fisher said. "That's the idea."

There were still no formal proposals made, but several concepts are under discussion. One issue that remains is the league's insistence on a hard salary cap. The two sides, however, have recently discussed a more restrictive soft cap system.

Fisher said the sides temporarily tabled the debate over the revenue split -- the league was seeking 54-46 split in its favor, which would be an 11 percent drop for the union from the previous agreement -- to see if they could make some progress on the cap system issue.

But this weekend, everything will have to be addressed because the process is reaching a make-or-break status for the start of the regular season. "We're getting very close to that point," Silver admitted.

And, apparently, so are the game's fans. As National Basketball Players Association executive chairman Billy Hunter stood in traffic on 63rd Street awaiting his car service, a white sedan paused next to him and the driver pounded his door with anger.

"We want basketball!" a man growled from the driver's seat. "Stop playing and get it done!"