NBA Lockout: Marathon Tuesday Meeting Yields Minimal Progress After 16 Hours

The NBA and NBPA are working diligently in an effort to find a solution to the current lockout, but Tuesday's 16-hour meeting with federal mediator George Cohen yielded little reason for optimism.

If there is one thing that we have learned from the ongoing negotiations between the two sides, it's that the actual time spent at the bargaining table is meaningless, as it clearly has no correlation toward progress being achieved.

Tuesday's meeting between the parties was the longest one to date—by far—but despite the length of the meeting and the presence of Cohen in the room, initial reports don't sound promising in terms of what, if anything, was actually achieved.

If there were a silver lining to be found from Tuesday's events, it's that more games weren't canceled, as commissioner David Stern had previously suggested might happen last week.

"

Right now, Tuesday, Tuesday, Tuesday, just before my owners come into town, having brought in the labor relations committee and Billy (Hunter) having brought in his executive committee, it's time to make the deal.

If we don't make it on Tuesday, my gut—this is not in my official capacity of canceling games—but my gut is that we won't be playing on Christmas Day.

"

That didn't happen. Stern didn't walk out of the meeting ready to cancel games, and the two sides are going back to the table at 10 a.m. ET in an effort to hammer out an agreement.

It's hard to know exactly what the two sides spent 16 hours discussing with a gag order in place at the request of Cohen, but multiple insiders staking out the ongoing negotiations cite sources inside the room as stating there was little movement made on the biggest hurdles.

Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports had a source inside the meeting, and the feedback provided was less than inspiring for those hopeful of a deal to be consummated.

"Still not anywhere near a deal," the source said.

But it gets even better than that.

When asked if there had been any gaps closed between the two sides, the source gave an ominous response: "On small stuff. Hard to see where this is going."

It's going right back to the negotiating table on Wednesday.

Despite the lack of progress being reported between the sides stemming from Tuesday's meeting, there are some important takeaways for those hoping that the season can still be saved.

The first one is that the two sides are meeting again. Not next week, not in a few days, but just eight hours after the initial meeting had concluded.

If there was an enormous gap remaining between the parties, there would be no reason for the sides to have met for 16 hours on Tuesday, and there certainly would be no reason as to why they would continue to meet on Wednesday.

Secondly, as alluded to previously, it's hard to imagine that both parties would agree to meeting for an insanely long 16-hour meeting on Tuesday if there was truly nothing being accomplished.

While it's certainly difficult to read into the events of what takes place behind closed doors, one would have to imagine that they're running a short track given the length of the meeting, otherwise they probably would have spaced out the discussions rather than working until 2 a.m.

Stern's artificial deadline has come and gone without the league canceling further regular-season action, and at least fans can take that with them heading into Wednesday's talks.

However, at what point do the parties move off the "small stuff" and move onto the the biggest stumbling blocks that remain?

The league continues to insist on an escalating tax system and harsh penalties for teams that exceed the salary cap, as well as a drastic alteration to the split of BRI from where the previous agreement stood.

Let's hope that those topics actually get discussed on Wednesday; otherwise, we're in for more of the same disappointment we've experienced since the lockout became official.