NBA, union to meet just before CBA expires

The NBA will sit down with the players union Thursday in Manhattan for one last collective-bargaining session before the current CBA expires at midnight. The league's board of governors had a scheduled meeting Tuesday in Dallas and did not vote to authorize commissioner David Stern to lock out the players when the current agreement expires.

But that result could be reached quickly Thursday if significant progress isn't made in the negotiations.

"We're not talking about likelihoods," Stern told reporters in Dallas after Tuesday's meeting. "We're looking forward to Thursday. That will be great."

Stern has insisted that the owners are motivated to avoid a lockout, though union executive director Billy Hunter previously has suggested otherwise and points to the league's unwillingness to move off installing a hard salary cap system in the next agreement. That, along with hundreds of millions in salary givebacks, is what the union has steadfastly opposed.

The sides last met Friday in Manhattan, where the league was expecting a counterproposal from the union but did not get one. Instead, more than 30 players attended a meeting that involved a great deal of, as Stern described it, "to and fro" and an effort to better understand the other's perspective.

The meeting, according to multiple sources, had a few heated exchanges and a couple of players even left before it ended. The most disappointing result was that there was little accomplished in negotiations.

With AP