Billy Hunter: 2011-12 NBA Season May Be Lost

If the major players in this negotiation process aren’t optimistic, that’s probably not a good sign…

NBA Players Association executive director Billy Hunter said Wednesday that if he “had to bet on it,” he would wager that the entire 2011-12 season would be wiped out by the lockout.

“We’re $800 million apart per year,” Hunter told about 200 people during a seminar at a conference in Baltimore of the National Bar Association, an organization of predominantly African-American lawyers and judges.

The union chief said NBA commissioner David Stern was being limited in negotiations by hard-line owners.

“The circumstances have changed among his constituency,” said Hunter, the executive director since 1996. “In the last six or seven years, there is a new group of owners to come in who paid a premium for their franchises, and what they’re doing is kind of holding his feet to the fire.”

Read more of Hunter’s comments at TheBaltimoreSun.com.