NBA Lockout: Last Effort to Save Full Regular Season Will Fail to Produce Deal

NBA officials and the NBA players union will meet one last time with regular season games hanging in the balance, based on a report from the New York Times. Although it's good to see effort from both sides to complete a deal, it's highly unlikely the meeting will yield the result basketball fans are hoping for.

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Top officials for the NBA and the players union will meet Sunday night in a final, and unexpected, attempt to resolve the lockout before regular-season games are lost, according to a person briefed on the meeting.

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There are too many differences between the two sides, including a revenue split between the owners and players, to be resolved in one meeting. The fact so many players are either signed to a European team or exploring the option should make it a clear a deal isn't on the horizon.

That said, negotiations are always good. Even if tonight's meeting leads to just one logistical agreement, that's a step in the right direction to seeing at least a partial season.

Both sides should do everything within their power to make sure an entire season isn't lost. The NHL, which missed the entire 2004-05 season due to a lockout, is just now starting to regain the momentum it had before the work stoppage.

General consensus has said the owners are willing to miss the entire league year and risk a lot of money in the process to get what they want for the future. And players aren't going to accept a bad deal just to get back on an NBA court.

What has come from the extended lockout is more players getting involved in pick-up games, leading to prime-time matchups in gyms no larger than your high school's. A great example of this phenomena is Brandon Jennings, who was featured in this week's Sports Illustrated.

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He gives one defender a head fake, two more a shoulder shimmy, rises over another and throws down a furious tomahawk jam in front of one of the no dunking signs. A few spectators, spread across five rows of wooden bleachers, look simultaneously delighted and puzzled.

Welcome to the 2011-12 NBA season—or lack thereof—where the guy with the BRANDON JENNINGS shirt at your neighborhood gym actually is Brandon Jennings.

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Sunday's last-ditch effort will probably come up short but chalk it up as progress toward getting Jennings back on a court where his dunks aren't illegal.

And at this point, that's music to the ears of NBA die-hards.