The NBA on Tuesday cancelled the rest of the preseason and says it will do the same to the regular season's opening two weeks if it doesn't reach a labor agreement with its players by Monday.

At risk for the Timberwolves are home games against Atlanta, Toronto, Phoenix, Sacramento and possibly Milwaukee as well as road games at Philadelphia and New Jersey.

For all the talk of issues such as a hard cap, revenue sharing, franchise-player tag, etc., this ultimately comes down to which percentage of revenues does each side get.

And that again was the problem on Tuesday, when David Stern said the league floated the concept of a 50-50.

The players received 57 percent in the last labor deal. Owners originally proposed slashing that to 46 percent in a typical display of negotiating gamesmanship and then came off that figure on Tuesday by making public that 50-50 offer. Players union officials reportedly were angered that Stern disclosed that figure, theorizing it was done in an effort to cause the players to splinter.

Apparently, the two sides now are at impasse after narrowing a gap that at one time seemed as big as $8 billion and now is down to mere hundreds of millions.

You'd think they could go a step further and get this thing hammered out.

You'd think....