NEW YORK — The NBA lockout is about to start inflicting damage on the preseason scheduleand neither players nor owners can say what will happen to the real games.
The league will cancel training camps and some exhibition games today after failing to reach a new collective bargaining agreement with its players, multiple media outlets reported Thursday.
Training camps were expected to begin Oct. 3, and the exhibition openers were set for Oct. 9. But the cancellations, first reported by Yahoo Sports, became unavoidable after another meeting between players and owners Thursday failed to end the lockout, which began July 1.
While providing no details of the meeting, commissioner David Stern acknowledged that “the calendar is not our friend” when it comes to keeping the season intact.
Stern said he had “no announcement to make” regarding any postponements or cancellations, but they became a certainty with no breakthrough Thursday. Talks are not expected to resume until next week.
The league is at about the same point as when it postponed camps in 1998, the only time it lost games to a work stoppage. The decision then came on Sept. 24 for camps that were set to begin Oct. 5.
The regular season is scheduled to open Nov. 1.
Denver Post wire services
