NBA commissioner David Stern said Tuesday that the league still projects a drop in revenue in the near future.

Stern told the Salt Lake Tribune that a dip of between 2 1/2 to 5 percent could lead to a significant reduction in the league's salary cap and luxury tax figures for the 2010-11 season.

"As far as we can tell from our preseason numbers, that's exactly where it's going to come in," Stern said.

The league informed its teams of the projection in July. Stern said that things don't look much much different three months later.

"I would love to get it closer to 21/2 percent," he said, "but I don't think we're going to because our teams have cut their ticket prices or frozen them, so as a result, even if we have good attendance, we'll be taking in less revenue at the gate, and that's an important component. And that's OK. We're responding to our fans."