It’s not really a shock, the owners and players said they were going to meet again after Wednesday’s get together. But you also knew despite the attempt of both sides to go into radio silence word would leak out about another meeting.
It has, it’s next week, according to Sam Amick at Sports Illustrated.
According to two sources close to the situation, the NBA and National Basketball Players’ Association have agreed to meet again next week.
As was the case with Wednesday’s six-hour meeting in Manhattan, next week’s session is expected to include only a small group of representatives and will likely take place on Wednesday or Thursday. It will be just the third meeting since the lockout began on July 1.
If you’re an optimist, you can say that the second meeting in a week of only high-level guys, a sign that they are getting a little more serious and maybe they are making a little progress. As for progress, the two sides decided not to keep taking pot shots at each other in the media, so there’s that.
But the reality is that time is running out fast to save the full season and according to union director Billy Hunter there has been no breakthrough. The two sides remain very far apart on the key issue of how to divide up the basketball related income pie.