NBA talks will resume Monday!

NEW YORK -- With a month until the NBA season, players and owners don't sound much closer to a labor deal than they did when the lockout began. They're so far apart on money they decided to... leave it alone Saturday and focused mainly on the salary cap. They couldn't solve that, either. "I wouldn't say there was any progress. What happened was, they put some concepts up, we put some concepts up, and we're still miles apart," union executive director Billy Hunter said. "There's a huge bridge, gap, that I don't know if we're going to be able to close it or The sides will meet again Monday -- the day training camps were to have begun -- though time is getting short to save the start of the regular season, scheduled for Nov. 1. Neither side sounds optimistic.

The regular season is set to open November 1, provided there is a new collective bargaining agreement. "Our desire would be to not cancel," Stern said. "We had been hopeful that this weekend would be a broader marker, but for reasons which we understand the players suggested we resume on Monday and we said 'fine.'" Hunter added that owners still want players to receive 46 percent of basketball-related income in a new deal and not the 57 percent that was in the last labor agreement. The NBA locked out its players on July 1 after the most recent labor deal between the two sides expired. Unlike the labor strife that caused NFL lockout, which long appeared to be solvable, the problems facing the NBA have led observers to warn about a prolonged dispute like the one that canceled the 2004-05 NHL season.