By Chris Sheridan
NEW YORK — Here is the NBA lockout in a nutshell as Monday morning becomes Monday afternoon.
_ There is a small group meeting ongoing right now. Only the heavy hitters are in attendance, including David Stern and Adam Silver from the league office, Derek Fisher and Billy Hunter from the Players Association, plus some support staff on both sides. There will be a larger meting Tuesday with the negotiating committees from both sides. Hunter is encouraging extra players to attend. Beyond Tuesday lies the great unknown, but at some point this week we should expect the NBA to cancel the remainder of the preseason schedule.
_ There are two principal items remaining to be resolved: The split of the money, and changes to the salary cap system. They have decided to atack those two issues separately, so they are talking about stuff like the Larry Bird exception, the mid-level exception, maximum annual raises, maximum length of contracts, veteran minimum salaries, etc.
_ The revenue split may end up being the last thing they tackle. In their latest formal proposals, the owners were offering 46 percent of basketball-related income (aka BRI), and the players were willing to reduce their share from 57 percent to 53 percent. The players feel a more realistic offer should have been forthcoming from the owners by now.
_The actual 11th hour for saving the Nov. 1 start of the regular season is the big unknown here. Only David Stern has access to the secret alarm clock.
More later.