Pelicans' CJ McCollum Says CBA Talks with NBA 'Moving in the Right Direction'

New Orleans Pelicans star CJ McCollum, who is also president of the National Basketball Players Association, said Saturday that negotiations with the NBA on a new collective bargaining agreement "are moving in the right direction," per The Athletic's Mike Vorkunov.

McCollum added that he's happy with the progress but would not go into specifics.

This month, the NBA and NBPA agreed to extend the early opt-out deadline to allow the sides to continue negotiations on a new CBA.

ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski reported at the time that "a significant part of what has allowed discussions to progress has been the NBA's willingness to soften from its original push for an upper spending limit on team payrolls—a de facto hard cap.''

The CBA expires after the 2023-24 campaign. If the league or NBPA opts out of the current deal on June 30, a lockout would occur. Under a lockout, no transactions can take place and it's possible regular-season games could be lost.

Aside from the hard cap, the NBA's other top priorities in CBA negotiations, per Wojnarowski, include ways to discourage load management, create a plan to "incrementally add in the windfall escalation of revenue in the league's looming media deal" and allow 18-year-old high school players to declare for the draft instead of going to college or the G League.

McCollum said in his diary for Andscape earlier this week that his "main goal and objective" is to "make sure we're all on the same page as we continue to collectively bargain and negotiate" and to "be able to better articulate players' feelings on certain issues, and also get a better understanding of governors' issues and feelings on certain issues."

Aside from his duties as head of the NBPA, McCollum is attempting to get the Pelicans back to the postseason for the second straight year. The 31-year-old is averaging 21.1 points, 4.3 rebounds and 5.9 assists in 52 games while shooting 43.5 percent from the floor and 38.5 percent from deep.