Some Progress Is Finally Made in NBA Talks

After three weeks off for posturing, the principals in the NBA lockout went back to negotiating in earnest Friday in New York, meeting for 9 1/2 hours and reporting progress.

The sides will not meet again during the weekend, however, and no firm date is set for more talks.

“I would say there has been some movement from both sides,” Commissioner David Stern said. “I think it’s fair to say that there’s an evident spirit of an attempt to reach [agreement] on both sides.”

National Basketball Players Assn. officials, seemed similarly heartened. At lunchtime, union president Patrick Ewing was overheard outside a conference room, telling a league official: “Let’s get back in there. I want to play.”

The Associated Press reported that both sides moved off their proposals for the all-important revenue split. The league, which had opened at 48% and gone to 50%, is now reportedly offering 52%. The union, which started at 62% and then moved to 60%, is proposing 58%.

They also broke the logjam over the “escrow plan,” in which a part of players’ salaries will be held back, and kept if their pay exceeds the agreed-upon split.

The league had proposed a plan without limits. Now it has moved to the union’s proposal for a 10% plan.

Friday’s session was the first since Oct. 28 to include the full negotiating teams, evolving after Stern called Dikembe Mutombo of the Atlanta Hawks, a member of the union’s board of directors.

Nevertheless, Friday began looking like more of the same.

“I don’t really have any reason to think we’ll make any progress,” said NBA deputy commissioner Russ Granik on his way into the talks. “We certainly want to, but I don’t have my hopes up right now.”

Said Seattle center Jim McIlvaine: “There’s a sense that nothing’s going to be done right now.”

Union officials even insisted that their members were demanding that they make no concessions, but in private, things went better. The union reportedly tweaked its escrow plan and the league dropped its figure to the 10% the players have been saying they could live with.

“I’m optimistic that there will be a deal,” said Stern late in the day, “but the question is after how much more damage.”

The damage is already considerable. November’s games have already been canceled and half of December’s are unofficially history. League sources say that after a deal is reached, there will be a 7-14 day “dead period” while a final draft of the deal is prepared, ratified and signed. Only then will teams be allowed to open camps and sign free agents.

Under such a scenario, they have about a week to make a deal if they want to start playing by Christmas. Unless games are made up, most teams will have lost 24 by then--almost 30% of the season.