The NBA labor negotiations continue to hurtle towards disaster, with the threat of decertification and missed regular season games becoming more and more real. The impending doom has brought some of the biggest NBA stars to New York City for the meetings.
Among the new attendees at today's meetings were Celtics stars Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett.
Older stars have taken a more and more prominent role in the negotiations as talks have come closer to breaking down. The thought being that players like Pierce and Garnett have less to lose by challenging NBA commissioner David Stern because they've already made a significant amount of money and wouldn't be hurt from a public relations standpoint.
The labor negotiations have become increasingly more contentious in the last few days thanks to pressure being exerted by the agents of the players. The agents have begun to pressure the union to decertify rather than accept salary givebacks. It's possible that they may even stage a coup of union chief Billy Hunter as soon as this week.