Folks, we may not be seeing basketball for a long, long while. NBA fans should be wearing black on Friday in mourning.
Saying he was saddened on behalf of the game NBA Deputy Commissioner Adam Silver said that talks had broken off between the NBA owners and its players association. No new talks are scheduled, with Spurs owner Peter Holt saying both sides could use a breather. (David Stern was not at the meeting due to having the flu.)
This came after about 30 hours of negotiations over three days led by federal mediator George Cohen. Silver said that Cohen and the mediation team wanted to keep going but both the owners and players saw too big a gap and wanted to call it quits. The players denied this, saying they wanted to stay at the table. So to be clear, the two sides cant even agree on how the meeting ended. Cohen basically threw up his hands in disgust. Its that bad.
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No new cancellation of NBA games has been announced, but you can get that is coming in the next few days. Already the first two weeks of the season (through Nov. 14) have been canceled and games beyond Thanksgiving are likely on the block. NBA union president Derek Fisher talked about that in his remarks after the meetings.
This is not in any way about ego, he said. There are a lot of peoples livelihoods at stake separate from us.
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