Around 6:15 p.m. (give or take 15 minutes) Sunday in New York City, representatives of the NBA owners and players union met for an unexpected get-together in very late attempt to avoid losing regular season games. The league has said that Monday, if no labor agreement has been reached, the first two weeks of 2011-12 regular season games will be canceled.
Around 11:50 p.m. ET, several reporters covering the meeting commented on Twitter about the results:
Howard Beck of the New York Times: Meeting over. Stern says no comment, except that they’re meeting again tomorrow afternoon… Needless to say, LA union meeting is canceled. But Billy Hunter just confirmed, anyway… Fisher says not necessarily any closer to deal now than when night began, but back at it tomorrow.
Ken Berger of CBS Sports: Stern and Silver just emerged unannounced at 11:50 p.m. and Stern gave that brief statement… Stern said the no-comment was by mutual agreement with the players… Fisher says two sides “not necessarily any closer,” but, “We’re going back at it tomorrow.” Player meeting in L.A. postponed.
Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports: Stern has no comment, except to say they’re breaking for the night and meeting again on Monday afternoon… Stern said NBA and NBPA agreed to have no comment on the five hour-plus meetings in New York on Sunday night… Billy Hunter says he isn’t going to LA for players meeting, and will return to meet with NBA at 2 pm on Monday… Fisher has nothing to say, except that players meeting in Los Angeles on Monday will be rescheduled.
Chris Mannix of Sports Illustrated: Stern just came out, said no comment. Will reconvene tomorrow afternoon… Now waiting for union reps to come out. Suspect they won’t have much to say either… Billy Hunter says he is not going to LA tomorrow… Fisher: “We’re not necessarily any closer than we were tonight.”
