So much for Wednesday's NBA lockout deadline. After several hours of talks, the two sides have extended the deadline and will be back at it starting today at noon. David Stern characterized yesterday's talks as neither a failure or success, but the show will go on. There was talk of great optimism earlier in the day, but there are definitely some issues that still need to be addressed for a deal to be made.
The good news is that it appears the two sides are making progress on some of the system issues. Adrian Wojnarowski and David Aldridge both said three of the five issues are getting somewhere. The mid-level exception remains an issue, but according to Zach Lowe of Sports Illustrated, enough progress has been made to at least talk again.
At the end of the day, it does feel like there's some optimism in the air. Now, let's finish this and get basketball back.