NBA labor strife: A breakdown

What: Probable NBA labor lockout

When: Thursday at midnight, when the current collective bargaining agreement expires.

What it means: A suspension of basketball operations -- no player signings, no contact between teams and their players and perhaps most important, no payments to players -- until a new labor agreement is reached.

The issues: The NBA is seeking significant cuts in player costs and revenue-sharing to allow small-market teams to compete with the big ones. It says 22 of 30 teams lost money last season, $340 million in losses. Team owners have pushed what they call a "flex" salary cap. The players' union calls it a "hard" cap. The current CBA allows teams to far exceed the salary cap if they pay a luxury tax. The owners' proposal calls for a targeted $62 million cap that would be bracketed by minimum and maximum amounts on either end. A team could not exceed the maximum amount. The L.A. Lakers had a payroll of nearly $92 million last season. Hard cap, soft cap, flex cap, the key number will end up being what percentage of basketball-related revenue goes to players' salaries

Crunching numbers: The players last week offered to accept a $500 million pay reduction in the next five years. NBA Commissioner David Stern called the amount "modest." The players' union says the owners want $8 billion in cuts in the next 10 years.