Billy Hunter told the Houston Chronicle on Thursday that the NBA's new collective bargaining agreement isn't as close to being completed as he and David Stern thought less than a month ago.  At that point they expected it to be completed by the end of the regular season.

"Things are going slow," Hunter said. "It's like one step forward and two steps back.

"What we're saying is: We're going to make every effort to get a deal by the end of the season. I'm hopeful that proves to be the case. The negotiations are difficult. As I've indicated to the NBA, the only way we're going to make a deal (is that) the owners are going to have to compromise as well as ourselves. Neither one of us is going to get everything we'd like to get.

"The big issue is how do you divide the pie. One day they propose something. The next day we propose something. Neither one of us has been comfortable with what the other has proposed so far. We're still talking, but how soon we're going to reach an agreement is another matter."