>>NBA Appears Headed For Lockout

(New York, NY)  --  The NBA appears headed for a lockout.  The current collective bargaining agreement between the basketball league and its players' union is set to expire at midnight Eastern time.  A deal was still a long way off as of late Wednesday.  The biggest dispute is over player salaries.  Most team owners claim they are losing too much money.  To stop the bleeding, they say they need a new agreement that lowers the pay cap, shortens the length of contracts and slashes overall player salaries by a third.  NBA owners and players will get together one more time in New York today to try to work out a deal.  If they can't, the NBA would follow the NFL's lead and lock out its players for the first time since 1998.  That would delay July free agency moves and could endanger training camps and regular-season games this fall.