David Stern still holds the authority to make some minor changes to the NBA’s current CBA proposal, reports Adrian Wojnarowski.

“There can be a few things tweaked along the edges, the periphery and this can be agreed upon,” one ownership source told Yahoo! Sports. “I’m confident that would not be an issue if [Stern] did that.”

“It will be a very slight budge,” one high-ranking management source said.

Union executive director Billy Hunter reached out to Stern and arranged a negotiating session for Wednesday afternoon ahead of the league’s 5 p.m. ET deadline for the players to accept the offer.

The question: Will the owners compromise enough to make a deal happen? Despite the players now offering a 50-50 split in revenue – giving back as much as $375 million a year – owners are still threatening to pull the current offer, and reissue a previous draconian proposal that could set into motion union decertification and the possible cancellation of the entire 2011-12 season.

The two sides are set to meet again today. All it would take is some slight movement from the owners’ camp.

Of course, the way negotiations have gone, Paul Allen will arrive at the meeting uninvited, Kevin Garnett will appear out of thin air to ball-tap him, Dan Gilbert will sit by himself in a corner shouting “fuck the Heat,” Stern will repeatedly strike Jeffrey Kessler with a baseball bat, Derek Fisher will bounce around the room trying to draw a charge, Billy Hunter will scream, “The system, guys! We need a better system!”, Mickey Arison will tweet something about cruise ships and delicious steaks, and tomorrow the lockout will continue into its 133rd day.

Do you forgive me for losing any semblance of hope?

Reasonably, as long as they are trying to make a deal with the players rather than pancake them, the NBA owners would accept the 50-50 BRI split players offered on Tuesday, make system tweaks by Wednesday, and David Stern and Billy Hunter would shake hands with a tentative agreement Wednesday evening.

In a negotiation that was initially expected to come down to money, players have already agreed to $330 million worth of givebacks per season, according to Ken Berger, more than exceeding last year’s reported NBA losses. The problem is, NBA owners have been portrayed as far from reasonable, and David Stern may not hold any more power among them.

Hunter was the latest to question whether Stern is anything more than a puppet for the owners at this point. He actually wondered aloud whether Stern is now a “hostage” of NBA owners. (CBS Sports)

I asked Hunter, knowing Stern for as long as he has, how he expected the commissioner to react to having his bluff called Tuesday.

“I don’t know that we’ve ever called his bluff,” Hunter said.

“I think you just did,” I replied.

“It’s yet to be seen,” Hunter said. “My concern and what I’m trying to determine is whether or not David may be a hostage in his own camp. That’s what kind of concerns me, what’s going on over there. He may not have the sway that he once had. He’s been a hell of a commissioner, but I’m not sure.”

This thought is scarier than Rajon Rondo dribbling the ball thirty feet from the basket, Celtics down three, Game 7 of the NBA Finals, no time left to pass to anyone.*

What if Stern really isn’t calling the shots anymore? What if Dan Gilbert, Paul Allen and Michael Jordan have somehow seized control of the negotiations? What if the NBA owners really won’t budge from the proposal they made this weekend, which the players already decided they could not accept?

What then?

A prolonged legal battle centering on decertification of the union? The owners reversion to offering players 47% of the BRI split and a (mostly) hard cap, which the players would never accept? One year lost? More?

Hunter has already moved the players farther than they reasonably could have been expected to move. It’s David Stern’s turn now, unless he is nothing but a tool for the owners to boss around.

If Hunter’s worries are well-founded, if Stern is really being controlled, these lockout negotiations could soon resemble what Kobe Bryant called “nuclear winter.”

*Who am I kidding? At this point, if you told me the next NBA season would come down to one play, Celtics down three, Game 7 of the NBA Finals, Rondo shooting a thirty-foot jumper, I would A) call you a liar, and then B) jump for joy at the possibility you might be telling the truth.

On Tuesday, NBA union lawyer Jeffrey Kessler accused NBA owners of treating NBA players like plantation workers. (Washington Post, via Zach Lowe)

Jeffrey Kessler, a prominent attorney for the players, accused the owners of treating his clients like “plantation workers,” a comment that drew a furious response from Stern.

Kessler said the owners’ current offer to give the players half of basketball-related income was not a “fair deal” and that the soft salary cap functioned like a hard cap.

“To present that in the context of ‘take it or leave it,’ in our view, that is not good faith,” Kessler, who also represented the NFL players in their labor dispute with the NFL, said in a telephone interview Monday night. “Instead of treating the players like partners, they’re treating them like plantation workers.”

In a phone call Tuesday, Stern blamed Kessler for the stalled talks and said he deserved to be “called to task” for the remark.

“Kessler’s agenda is always to inflame and not to make a deal,” Stern said, “even if it means injecting race and thereby insulting his own clients. . . . He has been the single most divisive force in our negotiations and it doesn’t surprise me he would rant and not talk about specifics. Kessler’s conduct is routinely despicable.”

I’ll let this ignorance speak for itself.

David Stern might throw the players a frickin’ bone here, at the 11th hour of negotiations. According to Adrian Wojnarowski’s sources, the NBA commissioner wants to meet with the players association Tuesday and could possibly soften the NBA’s stance on a few key system issues. The problem — besides that all previous attempts for the NBA to soften its stance amounted to squat — is that Hunter might not even accept the meeting.

As David Stern tries to hold off his most rabid hardline owners, the NBA’s commissioner has expressed a willingness to meet with the Players Association with the possibility of relenting on some system issues that are important to the union in reaching an agreement, league sources told Yahoo! Sports.

Nevertheless, union executive director Billy Hunter was still deciding late Monday whether he wanted to take the meeting, two sources involved in the talks told Yahoo! Sports. The reason for Hunter’s hesitation was unclear.

As one ownership source told Yahoo! Sports on Monday night, “If there were a couple of tweaks needed around the edges – not fundamental deal points – I believe there could be a deal if everything else is agreed upon. But there needs to be a meeting with David and Billy for anything to happen.”

As usual, the NBA owners continue to be out of their mother-loving minds. A number of owners are reportedly unsatisfied by a 50-50 split, which would amount to the players giving back $267 million per season. That means a number of owners are convinced the players should shoulder THE ENTIRE BRUNT OF THE LEAGUE’S REPORTED LOSSES, even though the league’s reported losses — by any rational measure — are exaggerated. Sorry I went all Dan Gilbert on you with the cap locks (at least I opted not to use comic sans and didn’t predict I would win a championship before any of you), but I get disgusted any time someone kicks an unconscious person in the face, which is exactly what the owners are trying to do here. They’ve knocked the players out. The players are lying on the ground motionless. And some of these owners are trying to kick them in the face.

David Stern, from the sound of it, is actually trying to hold those owners back. But they’re strong, Stern’s losing his grip, and if the commish doesn’t hang on to those crazy mother-lovers with every bit of strength he has, things could get really ugly.

The NBA lockout is in a dangerous place, approaching the edge of a cliff on a dark road with no headlights. Hardline owners are huffing and puffing and saying they’re going to blow the entire house down. The players union is looking into whether decertification is a legitimate option. Billy Hunter and Derek Fisher may or may not have trust issues. David Stern may or may not control his camp. The negotiations seemingly teeter on a precipice, just a few percentage points from reaching a deal, but also a few more failed negotiating sessions from potentially losing a major chunk of the 2011-12 season.

Michael Jordan was outed Friday as the leader of the hardline owners. While that likely surprised some people — after all, Jordan was the one who famously told former Washington Wizards owner Abe Polin, “If you can’t make a profit, you should sell your team” — this is Michael Jordan, people. If pushing his grandmother down a set of stairs would help Jordan win (and assuredly he views this — like he views everything else — as a competition), goddamnit, Michael Jordan’s going to shove his grandmother down a set of stairs.

Jordan’s stance is hypocritical, indeed. Without a favorable collective bargaining agreement for the players, Jordan never would have accrued his wealth. Without the endorsement of today’s players, Jordan’s clothing line would not continue to net him a fortune. He should feel indebted to today’s players and to the collective bargaining agreement of yesteryear. Instead, he aims to level the playing field for the Charlotte Bobcats. (Insert any version of “maybe he just shouldn’t draft the likes of Adam Morrison” jokes here.) But really, this is Michael Jordan. If you thought he would ever bow down meekly, no matter who the opponent or what the game (and again, he absolutely views this as a competition), you probably haven’t been paying attention the last thirty years.

In the other corner are the players, some of whom — organized by Paul Pierce — engaged in a conference call with an attorney to see what negotiating options are available. Ray Allen said the players discussed a number of topics to see what direction they can turn if the negotiations continue to stall, but a large portion of the conversation reportedly hinged on decertification, an option which could lead to semi-anarchy, scaring the living bejesus out of every party involved. Decertification could lead to a long legal battle which could threaten this year if not next, or it could be just the threat necessary to hasten the owners into making a deal.

On a more Celtics-centric level is the continued maturation of Paul Pierce. Just seven or eight years ago, Pierce was known as an immature, whiny brat, a supremely talented scorer, questionable teammate and occasionally dim-witted decision maker who could sometimes be difficult to coach. Now, he’s organizing conference calls so players can become more educated regarding the options the players association can use going forward. I’ve mentioned this before, but we have been extremely lucky to watch Pierce’s growth, from that young, immature kid who wore a towel on his head to certain press conferences into the elder statesmen taking matters into his own hands to inform his peers. According to Ray Allen, Pierce wasn’t going behind the backs of union leaders. He just wanted to ensure that players had the opportunity to educate themselves about potentially forthcoming decisions that could influence their futures.

With the threat of decertification stronger than ever and a group of hardline owners digging their toes in the sand (likely outside their beautiful beach houses), Chris Sheridan is one of few reporters who does not seem worried that an NBA Armageddon could be approaching. Rather, Sheridan is “calling bullshit” on the hardline owners.

Jordan is on the other side of the table now, and it is beyond a little bit suspicious that he is now suddenly being portrayed as the leader of a ruthless ownership faction that is dictating the negotiating strategy of commissioner David Stern. These owners, we are being asked to believe, would rather shut down their sport at the height of its global growth spurt than meet somewhere in the middle on the split of revenues.

I am calling bullshit on them. This is a con, and all it is meant to do is put pressure on union negotiators to take the league’s “best and final offer” (actually, those words have yet to come out of Stern’s mouth) when that type of offer is put on the table today (or tomorrow, or Monday) with federal mediator George Cohen overseeing the proceedings.

As steady, intelligent thinkers have stated all along, a deal is there for the taking. The sides are too close economically to continue this steel cage match, especially considering that many of the pressing system issues have already been resolved. Rationally, the sides would meet in the middle on money issues and the NBA would resume play shortly.

But Ken Berger worries there’s nothing rational about these negotiators.

But no matter how the leverage shifts, no matter what legal maneuvers are executed, you know what happens? Eventually, the same parties will have to wind up back in a room to negotiate this agreement if they intend for the NBA to continue to exist.

The agreement is there to be negotiated now. The deal is there to be made. And the alternatives should be too frightening for anyone any longer to be so irresponsible as to wave a match in this roomful of noxious fumes.

What’s more frightening? This motley crew of bitter, disaffected agents and hardline owners have, in a bizarre way, joined forces. Every time these talks have reached a moment of truth, they’ve chosen chaos over reason, destruction over compromise, nuclear war over handshakes.

What makes this moment any different? Nothing, I’m sorry to say. Not a thing.

This weekend’s discussions could bring progress, and the NBA season could shortly stop being a distant illusion. Either that, or all the tough-guy, hard-ass rhetoric continues to rule the day, one side walks out on the other, and the league once again passes on a resolution that’s staring Billy Hunter and David Stern straight in the face.

The only good thing about the NBA lockout? Writers are stepping to the plate and launching tape-measure home runs.

Adrian Wojnarowski, Yahoo! Sports:

For all the talk about the Robert Sarvers, the most strident of the hardliners thrust himself to the forefront of fear that this could be a lost basketball season. For the past 15 years, Allen’s been the wildest of wild spenders, the salary cap-buster hell-bent on buying an NBA title. Outrageous contracts, $3 million a pop to purchase late draft picks. And now, the NBA’s board of governors found him the perfect candidate to be the bearer of gloom and doom in Thursday’s meeting, even when a union attorney Jeffrey Kessler said: “I thought we were making progress toward a deal.”

These are the mind games the owners will play with the players, all the way to a January deadline to cancel the season. They’ll be Lucy to the players’ Charlie Brown, pulling that ball away again and again. This is a high-stakes game full of backward agendas and hidden motives. Here’s the scariest part of it all for those who want labor talks to have a puncher’s chance at saving the season: Allen appears to be checking out on the Blazers, and there’s suspicion that his motives center on saving as much money as possible in this CBA to eventually ready his franchise for a sale.

“He’s gone the other way, the complete other way,” a high-ranking league official told Yahoo! Sports. “He’s been the most vociferous lately that [the owners] have given up too much to the players, that they should be holding out for a hard cap, for 40 percent to the players [on the revenue split]. No one has gone after the labor committee harder about this than him.”

Ben Golliver, CBS Sports:

[Paul] Allen is Garnett on steroids.

You want stubborn? Allen rode his pipe dream of running a cable company all the way to the ground, losing billions of dollars and eventually declaring bankruptcy.

You want off his rocker? He’s currently being sued by his own ex-military bodyguards for allegations of illegal activity, his helicopter recently crashed during an excursion to Antarctica and, oh yeah, he’s gone through two general managers and a vice president of basketball operations since the 2010 NBA Draft. He passes his time, including on Thursday morning, exchanging tweets about what rock song the Seattle Seahawks, his NFL franchise, should play at practice. Carroll plays along, of course, because he, like every Allen employee, knows his job depends on it.

You want “uninformed” on the state of the negotiations? Allen deputized team president Larry Miller to attend Board of Governors meetings and labor negotiations on his behalf. He put exactly the same amount of blood, sweat and tears into the possibility of a labor agreement as Garnett: none.

You want emotional? Allen recently wrote an autiobiography that included many unflattering stories about, and a recounting of decades-old grudges towards, his Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, one of the world’s greatest philanthropists. The book led to a falling out between the two men, who had been friends since high school, with Allen admitting during a television interview that Gates had stopped talking to him.

Kelly Dwyer, Ball Don’t Lie:

Guaranteed profits for poor basketball businessmen should be guaranteed no more thanRashad McCants’(notes) second NBA contract. The owners are flat wrong, in every way. Wrong in the way they purchased their teams, wrong in how they’ve run them, wrong in how they’ve handled this lockout (even to their own hoped-for ends), and wrong in the way they have not bargained in good faith. The owners never wanted to play in November.

And you have made concessions, real concessions, NBA players. And this isn’t coming from someone dying to start writing about NBA games again. Frankly, I’m burned out, even with no games in four months. I could use the break I didn’t get during the offseason. The owners are being prats. I get that, players. You’ve given in, and they haven’t; despite their talk of “concessions.”

It’s time, though. Because it’s only going to get worse. No, David Stern didn’t technically break the union; but he did unofficially. Just in the same way that Derrick Rose(notes) doesn’t really break Andre Miller’s(notes)actual ankles — he just gets to waltz in for the easy lay-in, while his team goes up real, real big.

And there’s no coming back from this deficit.

Andrew Sharp, SB Nation:

Anyway, there you have it. If you want to understand what’s driving the lockout and why it could last all year and why the owners are willing to jeopardize the future of the league to keep this going, it all comes down to a handful of issues that are misleading at best and in some cases downright lies. But David Stern and the NBA owners think you’ll believe. And whether you believe or not, they think the players will cave.

And as someone that loves basketball more than just about anything on earth, it makes me sad. Not even because we’re going to miss a lot of great basketball. It’s because if there’s common thread to all the issues above—other than greed, dishonesty, and ignorance—it’s the owners’ fundamental lack of understanding of the NBA.

That’s what’s killing the league right now.

Tom Ziller, SB Nation:

Dan Gilbert’s company, Quicken Loans, was one of the worst offenders in the housing bubble, offering scores of subprime loans to unqualified buyers, pumping up the real estate market until it burst, contributing to a collapse of the global financial markets and at least one bonafide U.S. recession. Gilbert wasn’t alone — plenty of banks got too loose in the name of profit and stupidity but mostly profit. But Quicken Loans was a big player in this game.

As such, Dan Gilbert doesn’t get to tell anyone to “trust his gut” in a business deal. Dan Gilbert can’t drop an ultimatum on someone, tell them to trust him and get away with it. Of all the delusion, the brand torching, the picking over carcasses that the NBA’s vultures have done over the past four month, nothing tops this. Nothing tops Dan Gilbert asking players to trust him. How could you blame anyone from laughing in his face?

In the end, it is David Stern and Adam Silver who need to get Allen, Holt and Gilbert — and the 26 other owners — back in line, back on a path to solutions, not union-busting. That is, of course, unless Billy Hunter is right, and this was the end-game all along.

If so, God help us. Our world can only survive so much bulls–t, and these owners are adding to the tally every single day.

Ken Berger, CBS Sports:

There are hard-liners among the owners who refuse to give the players a dime more than 50 percent, and some harder-liners who were reluctant to go even that far. But you know what? There are hard-liners on the union side, too — agents and super agents and clusters of seven agents who didn’t want to go a dime below 53 percent. I know of at least one powerful agent who never thought the players should have offered anything below 57 percent — the share they received under the previous six-year deal.

The difference? Fisher and Hunter have successfully excluded those hard-liners from the bargaining process, all the way up to Thursday, when sources told CBSSports.com that some agents were still working the phones and telling their clients to “hold firm” and reject any deal below 53 percent. Hunter and Fisher ignored them and offered to go lower on Thursday — to 52.5 percent if revenues came in as projected and as low as 50 percent if they came in lower.

The league has not only been unable to keep hard-line owners from influencing the negotiations, they couldn’t even keep them out of the room Thursday.

Of course, other than all the tremendous writing being published today, this lockout sucks.