Lakers announce signing of center Drummond

The NBA and NBPA will extend an early opt-out deadline of the current collective bargaining agreement to March 31st as talks continues without a new deal.

The NBA’s seven-year CBA expires following the 23-24 season and has been pushed back once already from Dec. 15th.

There had been some hope from teams that a deal would be in place by the trade deadline in order to inform future payroll planning based on potential rule changes.

The league has shown a willingness to give up its push to implement a hard cap, which has been called an upper spending limit.

The top priorities remaining in CBA talks include finding mechanisms to incentivize top players to participate in more regular season games, a “smoothing” plan for the next cap spike, and to end the one-and-done rule.