David Stern said that the league would like to cut about 33 percent from the current $2.1 billion of player costs.

"We would like to get profitable, have a return on investment," Stern said about his owners. "There's a swing of somewhere in the neighborhood of $750 to $800 million that we would like to change. That's our story and we're sticking with it."

"Even though we reported we have record season ticket sales over the summer and otherwise very robust revenue generation, because of the built-in cost of the system, it's virtually impossible for us to move the needle in terms of our losses," Adam Silver said.

"But there seems to be a mutual determination to push and probe and do and discuss," Stern said about the NBA's and the players' commitment to reach a new agreement, "because there's an increasing understanding on both sides of what the risk of not making a deal entails, and that this is actually palpable, but not quantifiable. So we're very much engaged in it."

Silver expressed interest in an early settlement.

"Before you know it, we're going to be at the beginning of 2011, and it's going to begin having an impact then and uncertainty is bad news for any business," Silver said.

Stern agrees with Billy Hunter that around All-Star Weekend will be a better time to gauge whether the dispute can be amicably resolved or is heading toward a work stoppage.

"We'll have a pretty good idea how good or not good things are by the end of February," Stern said.