NBA, Union Agreement Close, According to Stern Announcement

NBA Commissioner David Stern on Wednesday reported “substantial progress” in the long-stalled talks with the players’ union and suggested an agreement is close.

The league has called a meeting of its board of governors Tuesday in New York.

“We wouldn’t call the meeting unless we thought that there would be a deal to close out,” Stern said.

The NBA had broken off talks several weeks ago and, as the sides sat down again Monday, got in some discreet saber-rattling, directing teams to impose a lockout when the finals ended.

After three days of talks, Stern said the teams and players were close enough to mutually extend the no-lockout, no-strike pledge “on a short-term basis.”

The sides had been deadlocked, the owners asking for an NFL-style absolute or “hard salary cap,” the players seeking to keep the present “soft cap,” in which teams can pay any amount to their own free agents.

Stern suggested the issue has been worked out.

”. . . Unless we had something that we thought was bigger than a breadbasket, smaller than an elephant and seemed to be in the right mode, we wouldn’t be agreeing with the players to extend the no-lockout, no-strike,” Stern said. “So substantial progress means substantial progress.”