NBA owners, players begin another round of lockout talks

And they're off...

Again.

Thirty hours over three days didn't lead to a new NBA deal last week. Fifteen hours wasn't enough in a negotiating session that started Wednesday and bled into the wee hours of Thursday morning.

How long will NBA negotiators spend in the same room this time? They started another session Thursday at 2 p.m. EDT in New York.

There was conservative optimism coming out of Wednesday's negotiations, which actually ended after 3 a.m. Thursday.

After an acrimonious breakup last week, the sides reconvened because owners dropped their take-it-or-leave-it demand for a 50-50 split of basketball-related income. The players made 57% of BRI last season.

The sides cobbled together discussions on smaller issues Wednesday, specifically what the luxury tax should look like in the next collective-bargaining agreement. The short explanation: small-market owners want to increase the tax to keep deep-pocketed owners from spending freely; players think that's a bad idea because they want lots of money spent without penalty.

"We can't say there was major progress in any way but there was some progress on some of our system issues, obviously enough for us to come back [later Thursday]," players union president Derek Fisher said at an early morning news conference.

Other peripheral or "system" concepts were also discussed, but neither side broached the big item, the BRI.

"There are still some very big issues left," NBA deputy commissioner Adam Silver said at about 4 a.m. EDT.

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-- Mike Bresnahan

Photo: Derek Fisher. Credit: Frank Franklin II / Associated Press.