NEW YORK -- The NBA and the NBA Players Association will continue to negotiate leading up to the 5 p.m. deadline established by NBA Commissioner David Stern for the union to accept the league's latest proposal.
After meeting for about four hours on Tuesday, the NBAPA announced that it would turn down the owner's proposal, but wanted to continue negotiating. NBAPA Executive Director Billy Hunter placed a call to Stern, who in turn consulted with the league's Labor Relations Committee.
They gave Stern the go-ahead to continue negotiating with the union, although it's unclear what, if any, conditions were set for the latest bargaining session which will begin later this afternoon in New York City.
Following the last bargaining session, which ended early Sunday morning, Stern said the current offer would be off the table if the union did not accept it by 5 p.m. today.
The union was given the go-ahead to continue negotiating the economics of a new Collective Bargaining Agreement, which likely means that they will accept a 50-50 split of the Basketball-Related Income. However, that would involve the owners making some concessions on some of the union's system-related concerns.
Following Tuesday's meeting, union leaders indicated some of their system-related concerns included length of mid-level contracts; tax-paying teams having the ability to use the full mid-level exception; sign-and-trades and escrow funds.
In an interview with NBA-TV on Tuesday, Stern said that there was "none left" when asked if there was still wiggle room on system-related issues.
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But apparently, that's not the case if he's meeting with the union one more time before his self-imposed take-it-or-it'll-get-worst deadline to get the current offer on the table, agreed upon.