Progress in Labor Negotiations, but Lockout Still Looms

The shape of the N.B.A.’s future and the prospect of a labor war that could radically alter it may be decided early next week in a Manhattan hotel conference room.

After 17 months of mostly static negotiations, owners and players will gather Tuesday for a meeting that Commissioner David Stern solemnly called “a very important day in these negotiations.”

Stern made that declaration Friday after a five-hour bargaining session that produced agreement on one key item — the preservation of guaranteed contracts. But the talks did not bridge the huge gulf on financial issues that divide players and owners.

The process now comes down to a single meeting and whether the parties can make enough progress to justify further sessions. If a new labor deal is not adopted by June 30, the owners will impose a lockout that is expected to be lengthy and costly.

“It’s just important because of the substance of our conversations today,” Stern said of Tuesday’s meeting, “and because time is running out, and because both parties still remain, at least to me, intent on doing the best they can to make a deal before June 30.”

Asked if a breakthrough was critical Tuesday, Stern said, “Yes, yes.” Asked if he would know by the end of that day whether a lockout was likely, he again answered in the affirmative.

As players and owners dispersed for the weekend, the gap between them remained massive — more than $700 million, by one measure. They also remain at odds over the fundamental structure of the league’s economic system. The owners are pushing for a hard salary cap and the players are lobbying to retain the soft-cap system that has been in place for nearly three decades.

“We’re not asking for anything in addition to the things that we’ve negotiated some 10, 15, 20 years before now,” said Derek Fisher, the president of the players union.

The players did achieve a significant victory Friday, persuading the owners to drop a longstanding demand for the elimination of fully guaranteed contracts

With an expanded group of players in the room — including Carmelo Anthony, one of the league’s brightest stars — the union made a passionate push on the issue.

Stern said, “It was a response to a particular presentation by many of the players present, and their lawyer, who said that of all the issues, the guarantee is one that is very, very important to individual players.”

Stern called it “more than a gesture,” but the players viewed it as a fairly minor move, given the owners’ continued insistence on a hard cap and salary rollbacks.

“They moved to giving us back guaranteed contracts, which we already had,” said Maurice Evans, a member of the union’s executive committee. He added, “That’s not a move.”

Jeffrey Kessler, the union’s outside counsel, called the concession on guaranteed contracts “a positive step,” but said the continued insistence on a hard cap “really undermines, from the players’ standpoint, what it means.”

After making the concession on guaranteed deals, Stern seemed to put the onus back on the players, saying he hoped to receive a new proposal from them Tuesday. Adam Silver, the deputy commissioner, said the players did make “an economic move” in Friday’s meeting, but said it was one that “even they would characterize as having been very small.”

Nine owners, all of whom serve on the N.B.A.’s labor committee, attended the meeting. Eight of the nine members of the players’ executive committee attended, in addition to Anthony, John Salmons and Sebastian Telfair.

It was also announced that the N.B.A. summer league was canceled, making it the first casualty of the labor standoff, albeit an inevitable one. The league was scheduled for early July, leaving little time to make the arrangements. The announcement had been expected.

Silver said the decision was “purely a function of the calendar and drop-dead dates with hotels and the arena,” and was not intended as any signal to the union.