Jim Quinn, a former general counsel for the National Basketball Players Association who helped craft the deal to end the 1999 NBA lockout, has talked to both commissioner David Stern and players' lead Billy Hunter in recent days, reports CBS Sports' Ken Berger. Quinn is seen as a dealmaker whose deep relationships with just about everyone involved could help grease the wheels for an agreement.
But Quinn isn't helping yet; negotiations remain idle, which they have been since players rejected the NBA's latest offer a week ago, disbanded its union and filed anti-trust litigation. Neither side has seemed willing to call the other party to restart negotiations with an eye on saving the Christmas Day slate of games, which will be impossible without a deal by the end of Thanksgiving weekend.
Quinn's relationship with Stern goes as far back as Oscar Robertson's anti-trust suit against the NBA, settled in 1976. Quinn worked for the union during Hunter's first few years as its director.