Report: League sets Sept. 15 deadline before camps, preseason canceled

The NBA has started its campaign to ratchet up the pressure on the players to reach a deal when negotiations between the two sides start again this Wednesday.

That pressure — cancellations of the start of training camps and preseason games — was leaked to Hoopsworld’s Steve Kyler.

League sources have pegged September 15th as the last possible date to reach a deal before Training Camps and Pre-season games are likely scrubbed. Sources have also said that if even one Pre-season game is lost, the economic impact would be the same as if all the preseason games are lost. It would be a trigger a point in which league advertisers and sponsors could and would start pulling back and season ticketholders would likely start asking for refunds.

Camps were set to open in late September, then the first preseason games started Oct. 9. So the Sept. 15 date to start canceling things is a bit early, but it wouldn’t be a whole lot later before things had to start being called off.

Make no mistake, this is clearly a move to put pressure on the players — and win the public relations battle nobody should be fighting in the first place. Both sides are far more focused on the PR battle than actual negotiations right now.

If you think the players are really troubled by all this, we bring you the words of union vice president Maurice Evans on Fox Sports Radio with The Petros & Money Show (Via Sports Radio Interviews) when he was asked to describe the negotiations to this point:

“The best word I can use is generic. We’ve just been going through the motions. We’ve been meeting really often with the exception of this month. For the past two years we’ve been meeting and the owners are kind of disingenuous right now with their offers. Hopefully, at some point, they firm up a little bit and give us something to work with.”

It’s the cancellation of regular-season games that will be the first real pressure on the two sides to reach a deal, and that will come about Oct. 1 (the season was set to start Nov. 1 and it would take a month to have camps and free agency). Not that either side is ready to really move to the middle yet.