NBA referees remain "open" to negotiating a new agreement with the league, but no meeting has been scheduled.

The NBA's labor agreement with the referees' union expired Sept. 1. Commissioner David Stern abruptly ended a formal bargaining session last week.

Lamell McMorris, lead negotiator for the referees, said that the NBA needs to pick up the phone and rekindle talks.

"We remain wide open, as we have throughout this negotiation, to getting a deal done," McMorris told ESPN.com. "But any sensible person would have to agree that if someone throws you out of a meeting, it's probably up to them to call you back to the table. I didn't throw them out of the meeting, they threw us out of the meeting."

The referees' union claims the sides are $600,000 to $700,000 apart in their negotiations. The NBA entered negotiations looking to reduce their referee budget by $3.2 million. However, the league claims that the gap is much wider.