OK, so today wasn't the day.
With a deal supposedly within reach, NBA owners and players walked away from each other this afternoon for the second time in eight days and the NBA responded by cancelling two more weeks of games, through Nov. 30.
That means hope for an 82-game season just slipped away, but remember: The season wasn't going to start at least until Thanksgiving or Dec. 1 anyway, so these cancellations aren't necessarily the loss of all those games.
The forthcoming cancellation announcements whacks nine Timberwolves' games (at least for now): home games against Milwaukee, San Antonio, Golden State and Houston and games at Memphis, Houston, Washington, Lakers and Sacramento.
After three more long days of negotiations, they couldn't agree on how big a slice of pie from basketball-related revenue each would receive, an issue that didn't even try tackling until today while they tried to settle other smaller issues.
After 5 1/2 hours of discussion today, the two sides remain percentage points away on the split: The union wants 52.5 percent, the owners' 50 percent.
NBA commissioner David Stern said Hunter closed up his book and left the room when the owners wouldn't move past 50 percent.
He also said the league's next offer will change because of increasing losses caused by the cancellation of games.
Stern said he thought the union might meet the owners at 50/50 because of concessions the owners made in agreeing to a $5 million midlevel exception and by agreeing to allow teams to sign their own players to five-year contracts and other free agents to four years guaranteed rather than four and three as previously offered.
