Officials with the league and players' camp are eager to resume NBA lockout negotiations in hopes of saving the Christmas slate of games, reports CBS Sports' Ken Berger. There are financial incentives to start the season no later than the NBA's big holiday, and Berger reports that the NBA believes it to be not viable to start the season after Christmas, as it did in 1999.
On paper, the two sides are not far apart. The players have gone as far as a 50-50 revenue split, but only with the condition that the NBA concedes on a few key salary cap system issues. The league wouldn't do so in the last set of talks, instead presenting the union with a take-it-or-leave-it offer and a deadline. In response, the union dissolved and players served two separate anti-trust lawsuits.
NBA commissioner David Stern has said that the league needs 30 days from handshake to tip-off, which means that to save the Christmas games, we need a deal by two days after Thanksgiving, or in the next week.