NBA Lockout Update : preseason sure to be delayed

Source : Adrian Wojnarowski, Yahoo! Sports

NEW YORK – After failing to make progress in collective bargaining talks with the Players Association, NBA commissioner David Stern will formally cancel the first two weeks of training camp and exhibition games in October after a call with league owners on Friday, NBA sources told Yahoo! Sports.

Stern and deputy commissioner Adam Silver met with union executive director Billy Hunter and president Derek Fisher on Thursday in Manhattan. Afterward, the two sides revealed little publicly about the nature of the talks, but one source briefed on the meeting said “both sides dug in,” suggesting there wasn’t much movement from either the league or the union.

“No announcement to make today,” Stern said, “but the calendar is not our friend.”

A league source told Y! Sports on Wednesday that the league was prepared to announce the delay of the preseason by the end of the week if no progress was made in Thursday’s meeting. Silver said the sides hope to meet again next week.

The NBA’s training camps were expected to open Oct. 3 and six exhibition games were scheduled for Oct. 9. The league is expected to cancel exhibition games through Oct. 15 on Friday and then re-evaluate the final two weeks of the preseason on Oct. 1. The scheduled Nov. 1 start to the regular season also is in danger of being postponed.

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I’m not going to try and make a guess on that one,” Fisher said. “The calendar’s obviously not our friend, but we’re not going to give up on the process because of the time.”

Once a new labor agreement is reached, it is still expected to take two or three weeks for the lawyers to iron out the details and produce a legal document for the two sides to sign. There is expected to be no free-agent signings, trades or other deals until the agreement is signed.