Two things in the article caught my eye. "The players offered a reduction to 54.3 percent that would have reduced their take by about $100 million a year—an offer Stern called "modest"—and said the owners’ proposal would have them well below 40 percent in the later years of the deal." and... "Owners had proposed a deal that would guarantee players total compensation of no less than $2 billion annually, with an average player salary of about $5 million. But that represents a pay cut from the more than $2.1 billion players were paid this season." Don't both deals here represent the same loss for the players, and yet the owners are going for a CBA that gives below 40% to players? I don't really know everything about the labor talks, but that seems a bit screwy.