NBA Preseason Cancelled Regular Season Delay Inevitable

The National Basketball Association (NBA) have cancelled the rest of its preseason schedule and will vacate the first two weeks of the regular season if the league doesn’t reach a new labor agreement with its players by Oct. 10.

Yesterday’s four-hour negotiations at a Manhattan hotel collapsed when the players rejected the idea of a 50/50 split of basketball-related income (BRI), NBA Commissioner David Stern said at a news conference.

“We weren’t able to make the progress that we’d hoped we’d be able to make and we weren’t able to continue the negotiations,” Stern said.

The league told the players that if an agreement in principle isn’t reached by Oct. 10 it would have “no choice but to cancel the first two weeks of the season,” Stern said.

“There’s no meetings scheduled,” he said. “We were told that it’s not to be.”

As things stand, an agreement by that date is unlikely, National Basketball Players Association President Derek Fisher said at a news conference, standing in front of players including All-Stars Kobe Bryant and Kevin Garnett.

Union Executive Director Billy Hunter said it could be “maybe a month, two months” before the sides talk again. The regular season is scheduled to begin Nov. 1.