NBA Lockout: League Wisely Looks Beyond Revenue Issues and Works on Full Season

All the NBA lockout talk has centered around negativity.

Canceling games. Missing paychecks. Why the two sides are not agreeing.

But on Wednesday and into Thursday, the two sides flipped the script and decided to use positivity for a change.

Rather than continuing the ongoing debate of revenue sharing, the two sides worked on the system itself.

An AP report quoted union president Derek Fisher as saying:

"

We were able to work through a number of different issues today regarding our system. We can't say that major progress was made in any way, but some progress was made on system issues. Obviously enough for us to come back.

"

The marathon meeting lasted 15 hours and will be resume today by 2 p.m. ET.

Commissioner David Stern offered some hopeful news by saying the league doesn't plan to cancel anymore games at the moment.

If something gets done "soon" they'll be able to play as many games as possible

Union director Billy Hunter echoed these sentiments and gave an overly optimistic time line of "Sunday or Monday" to save all 82 games.

There is nothing wrong with a bit of positivity in this issue. The two sides certainly have more issues to work through, including the revenue sharing, but right now there is, as Stern put it, "good energy, good back-and-forth in the room."

This is quite a change from the status a week ago.

Yahoo! Sports' report gave an adjusted and hopeful time line should a deal be struck in the next week:

"

Once an agreement is reached in principle, the league’s board of governors and the players will have to both ratify it. About three weeks will be needed to get the deal finalized in writing, allow teams to sign free agents and hold abbreviated training camps, possibly pushing the start of the regular season into the last week of November or the first week of December.

"

All that rides on progress made by both sides today.

As good as yesterday was, today is even more important.

Not only can the sides square away issues to do with the system, but they should be able to give a more accurate outlook on where they stand.

Expect more on this in the coming days and hopefully we can start talking actual basketball again.