Representatives on both sides have met several times in recent weeks in an attempt to resolve their long-running labor dispute and further negotiations will now take place in New York over the weekend.
“We had an engaging meeting today, discussed a lot of different ideas, concepts, system issues, economics,” NBA Players Association president Derek Fisher told reporters.
“We did not come out of here with a deal today, but we’ll be back here tomorrow at 10 a.m. to continue to discuss, try to bridge this gap. Today was just about expressing ourselves, our team owners did as well.
“We’ll continue to try and get it done, but I don’t know if it’s going to happen this weekend.”
Fisher, who plays for the Los Angeles Lakers, was accompanied by several leading players at Friday’s talks, among them LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony and Kevin Durant.
The main sticking point between the owners and players once again appeared to be the salary cap and NBA Commissioner David Stern was wary of negotiation time running out.
“I just know as I stand here that the calendar is not our friend,” Stern said. “Both sides agreed the consequences of not making a deal lead us to the prospect of possibly at some point in the-not-distant future losing regular-season games.
“Our deal with the players is that if we don’t have an agreement on everything than we have an agreement on nothing, and so there’s no such thing as a concensus. The only concensus we have is that we should turn up tomorrow and negotiate.”
The regular season is scheduled to begin on Nov. 1 but, with no deal in place for a new collective bargaining agreement (CBA), the league risks postponing or canceling regular season games for only the second time in its history.
The NBA last week announced they had postponed training camps and canceled the first week of preseason games.
“There are enormous consequences at play here,” Stern said before Friday’s talks. “Either we’ll make very good progress and we know how good that would be.
“Or we won’t make any progress and then it won’t be a question of just starting the season on time. There will be a lot at risk.”
NBA owners contend the league lost $300 million last season with 22 of 30 teams in the red. They want the league’s share of basketball-related income increased from 50 to 57 percent, along with a firm salary cap and shorter contracts.
The players offered to reduce their share to 54.3 percent.
