Sides ‘very far apart’ in NBA labor talks

Reporting from Dallas — Basketball fans better enjoy the last portion of the NBA Finals. It doesn’t look like a seamless, airy summer awaits the NBA.

Negotiations between players and owners continue to falter three weeks before the collective-bargaining agreement expires, meaning the NBA could soon join the NFL on the sidelines.

Not long after the Miami Heat concluded its practice Wednesday at American Airlines Center, both the NBA and the National Basketball Players Assn. had somber words regarding the game’s future after the Finals.

NBA Commissioner David Stern said the owners and players remained “very far apart” and that the sides weren’t “anyplace close to a deal” before the current labor agreement expires June 30.

After two days of negotiations in Dallas, specific financial numbers were not publicized by either side, but the impasse was over three issues.

NBA owners want a hard salary cap like the one in the NFL to prevent free-spending teams from dominating financially. Players prefer the current spending environment in which NBA teams can surpass the soft salary cap and pay luxury-tax penalties.

Owners also want to decrease the length of player contracts, which currently max out at six seasons.

Finally, owners are trying to limit guaranteed contracts. An overwhelming majority of current NBA player contracts are guaranteed.

Twenty-two of 30 NBA teams are posting losses totaling close to $300 million, according to the league. Most of the teams struggling financially are small-market franchises with large player payrolls and stagnant attendance.

The largest issue at stake is the salary cap, which currently rests at $58 million. Teams are allowed to pass over the cap if they re-sign their own players, but they are hit with a dollar-for-dollar luxury tax if their player payroll is more than $70.3 million.

“We’re adamantly against a hard salary-cap system,” said Derek Fisher, president of the union. “We don’t think that it will give what our owners have characterized as competitive balance or more parity in the game.”

The sides will meet again next Tuesday in either Miami or New York, depending on whether the Finals go seven games.

“A lockout at this point would cause tremendous damage to our game,” Fisher said. “There’s no question about it. As players, we have no interest in [a lockout] and we’re going to continue to fight as hard as we can.”

mike.bresnahan@latimes.com

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