Kobe Bryant wants another meeting with owners

Kudos to Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports for landing the interview of the day:

“As the NBA and Players Association trudge toward a possible doomsday deadline, Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant urged owners to meet with the players union before Wednesday and spare the league from “spiraling into a nuclear winter.” “We need for the two sides to get together again before Wednesday, because we’re too close to getting a deal done,” Bryant told Yahoo! Sports on Monday. “We need to iron out the last system items and save this from spiraling into a nuclear winter.” The NBA and Players Association are discussing setting up a meeting for Tuesday to try and reach agreement on a labor deal, a league source told Yahoo! Sports. Nothing is finalized, but the sides were working toward having a session in New York before Wednesday’s league-imposed deadline for the union to accept the owners’ current offer. Lakers guard Steve Blake has been canvassing peers throughout the league over the past 48 hours, pushing them to contact team player representatives to push the Players Association to let its 450-plus membership vote on the owner’s ultimatum offer, sources said. Blake hasn’t been pushing players to vote “yes” or “no” on the deal but has gained a groundswell of support with players throughout the league. Nevertheless, Blake is a proponent of accepting the league’s current offer, sources said. The agents and players pushing for decertification of the Players Association believe they’re on the way to getting 50 percent of the league’s players to sign a petition this week, sources told Yahoo! Sports. “We want a show of force with the percentage who sign the petition,” one agent told Yahoo! Sports.”