NBA Lockout: Players and Owners Break off Talks, Regular Season Appears Doomed

We already know that the NBA preseason is gone, and we already know that the first two weeks of the regular season are also gone.

Now it sounds like the rest of the season may soon follow.

The NBA's players and owners have engaged in some long, drawn-out discussions this week, but they went into Thursday's session without two things: commissioner David Stern, who called in sick, and any real hope of reaching a new labor agreement.

Yahoo! Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski was the first to break the bad news:

If you're just now joining the party, "BRI" stands for basketball-related income. In 2011, the players got 57 percent of the league's income, so asking them to drop down to 50 percent is asking a lot.

According to CBS Sports' Ken Berger, the players started the day wanting 53 percent of BRI, and only moved down to 52.5. That was when NBA deputy commissioner Adam Silver said the league got fed up:

Joining Silver was San Antonio Spurs owner Peter Holt, and he summed the day up quite nicely:

So at this point, the situation is pretty simple. The league's players and owners are still nowhere close to reaching an agreement, and it is essentially unknown when talks will pick up again. When they do, who knows how long it will take the two sides to settle their differences?

Meanwhile, the thing to keep in mind here is that the 2011-2012 NBA season was supposed to start on November 1st. It's possible that the two sides may not meet again until well after that date.

In summary, things are looking pretty bleak at the moment. Stern said last week (see Associated Press report) that it was entirely possible that the lockout would continue up to Christmas day. Given today's developments, it can probably be taken for granted that this is very much a legitimate possibility. Both sides are dug in, and Stern has made it abundantly clear that he's not going to blink first.

As far as a possible timeline goes, you can think back to the 1998-1999 NBA lockout for a helpful guide. The owners and players didn't come to a new agreement until January, and an abbreviated 50-game season started in early February.

Right now, a similar timeline almost seems like an ideal scenario. But until the players and owners start making some real progress, the entire regular season should be considered in jeopardy.

UPDATE

Not two seconds after I published this piece, NBA Players Association president Derek Fisher started sharing his side of the story.

Per Berger, Fisher wanted to make one thing clear right off the bat:

After Fisher spoke, it was NBPA executive director Billy Hunter's turn. Via Wojnarowski, Hunter indicated that today's developments were all part of the plan for the owners:

These comments aren't at all surprising. If one thing has become clear throughout these negotiations, it's that the two sides haven't really gotten beyond the point where they can put their emotions aside. That day will come, but until then there's going to be a lot of anger and no trust whatsoever between the two sides.

For what it's worth, though, Hunter did say that the players aren't entirely opposed to a 50-50 split of BRI:

The problem, if you believe Hunter, is that the owners wouldn't go into that level of detail until the players agreed to the split.

From Berger:

Basically, the owners are treating a 50-50 offer as a fair compromise. The players are treating it as an attempt to strong-arm them into relenting.

No doubt you can see why talks broke down.