The National Basketball Association appears to be on the verge of losing regular season games for the second time in league history.
Collective bargaining negotiations broke off between the NBA and the National Basketball Players Association after a four-hour meeting Tuesday, with no future talks scheduled (nba.com, 10/4).
Tuesday had been viewed as a crucial day in negotiations. Time is running out for the league and the players to agreed to a new collective bargaining agreement without losing portions of the regular season.
The 2011-12 NBA season is scheduled to begin on November 1.
In 1998, NBA owners chose to cancel the first two weeks of the season on October 13. That year, the regular season was scheduled to start on November 3.
The NBA has been close to the brink before. The NBPA threatened to go on strike prior to the 1967 NBA Playoffs, but an agreement was struck with less than a week to go before the scheduled start of the postseason. In 1983, the players set a strike date of April 2, but a deal was reached on March 31.
In 1994, the league averted a late October lockout that would have almost certainly resulted in the cancellation of games when the two sides agreed to a ‘no strike, no lockout’ agreement for the 1994-95 season. The truce would only postpone the inevitable, as the owners chose to lock out the players in 1995.
(Information on Tuesday’s talks from NBA.com)
