Lockout takes turn for worse; Iguodala at NYC fashion week

You know things are dire when I'm linking articles from New York City Fashion Week. I apologize in advance, but it's actually somewhat interesting and gives you an idea what some of the players (in this case Andre Iguodala) do with their down time. Dre is especially involved in fashion, as anyone who watches Comcast's post-game reports knows. I've never seen him wear the same thing twice. This week he was in Manhattan for the Simon Spurr Spring 2012 show. Here are the details from upscalehype.com: Dre in NYC.

Hard hitting journalism, I know.

Here's something a little more important in terms of the pending NBA season: yesterday's bargaining session in New York between the NBA Player's Association and team owners. Yeah, on the surface it didn't go so well. But maybe there was more progress made than we think? Some of you have emailed asking for details about what's the biggest sticking point in the negotiations. I'll say upfront that I think some lawyers/business insiders/expert lockout writers have done an awesome job outlining the major issues. You can find one such article here: NBA lockout details.

If you don't want an in-depth view, but you want it boiled down to something simple, here's the major obstacle right now: the salary cap. The owners want a hard salary cap to ensure that all 30 franchises have the same competitive playing field. The players don't want to alter the system, they want to retain the soft salary cap. That seems to be, as of right now, the major obstacle in hammering out a new collective bargaining agreement. If progress isn't made on that front in the next week or two, NBA commissioner David Stern will have to delay the opening of training camps; next would be cancelling some of the pre-season schedule; last, and farthest away, would be cancelling the beginning of the regular season.

The two sides haven't set another time for an in-person meeting, but they've agreed to be in communication, so we could see the next meeting set soon.

--Kate

Each week, Kate will check in from the road and answer fan questions about the Sixers. Click here to ask Kate a question or e-mail her at kfagan@phillynews.com.