It looks like we're finally on the right track to solving this NBA lockout. The two sides spent 15 hours talking among themselves in New York yesterday, and afterwards, both sides indicated that progress was made.
"We were able to work through a number of different issues today regarding our system," union president Derek Fisher said. "We can't say that major progress was made in any way, but some progress was made on system issues. Obviously enough for us to come back."
The two sides essentially tabled all discussions of the Basketball-Related Income split and focused on system issues instead, which is what Billy Hunter said the NBPA asked the owners to do last week. Unsurprisingly, doing this caused for some real progress to be made, though David Stern was careful to say that there is still a ways to go. I haven't been able to find a link detailing the actual concessions made on both sides, but given that Stern is still talking about an 82-game season and the NBPA is setting high expectations for Thursday's session, we may finally be getting somewhere.
Both sides seem to agree that the BRI split issue will be easier to deal with once system issues are solved. We'll see about that. It's also worth noting that these sessions have been with only a few important parties on either side, and selling whatever they come up with to their constituents is another ordeal entirely.
Nevertheless, it appears we're finally getting somewhere. Then again, we've been here before.