NBA Lockout: Marathon Meeting Ends with First 2 Weeks of Season Canceled

The first two weeks of the NBA season have been canceled.

Players and owners met on Monday in a marathon session to discuss a new NBA agreement. After hours of negotiations, a stalemate killed at least a portion of the NBA season.

There was only the tiniest amount of hope that a deal could be struck in a deadline that David Stern imposed ahead of Monday's meetings.

The players and owners couldn't agree on a split of basketball-related income and the divide was enormous. Yet the two parties met on in a last ditch effort anyway.

Various reports state that fans will be without NBA action for at least two weeks into the season. The temperature from the meetings puts a grim outlook on further negotiations.

Yahoos Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski tweeted a post that was expected, yet still very hard to stomach.

He then goes on to include a various number of other tweets quoting commissioner David Stern on the temperature of Monday's session:

"

We remain very, very apart on all issues. We have a gulf that separates us. With every day that goes by, there will be further reductions on what's left of the season. We tried very hard. We made concession after concession...I'm proud of my owners...demonstrated that they really tried.

"

Ken Berger of CBS Sports tweets what has been the central issue during the NBA lockout saying, "It comes down to a split of the revenue, and there is no amount of middle ground in sight."

This is far more dire than previous accounts that had the owners demanding the players agree to a 50-50 split. Previous reports had a down the middle split that seems to have been far from the reality, as owners appear to want a greater stake in the spoils.

Berger also tweets that Stern is ready to cancel more of the season in increments of two weeks at a time.

NBA fans should temper any hope for basketball action starting anytime soon. The separation on the revenue split is tremendous. There are no further meetings currently scheduled.

The assumption is that both sides will break and regroup, only to think about meeting in a few days. Unfortunately, the league would still need about a month before any games could be played.

Teams would need a ramp up period filled with time for free agency before games could even be scheduled.

It seems far more likely that we are primed for a long layoff as the owners remain staunch in their demands.