NBA AND PLAYERS STILL HAVE NOTE MET ABOUT LABOR DISPUTE

     "With training camp due to begin a week from Friday, the NBA
may be close to joining the pro sports labor battleground."
Yesterday, 76ers owner Harold Katz, who sits on the league's
labor relations committee, addressed the issue of a possible
lockout: "Anything is possible.  I'm hopeful that it just doesn't
come to that, but that's a possibility.  And it's possible that
that won't come to pass, either.  I don't want it to happen under
any circumstances."  Owners and players have not met since the
collective bargaining agreement expired in June.  The players
have been to court twice in three months "trying to challenge the
legality of the draft, the salary cap and restricted free
agency."  Katz said that NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman's
reasoning is right -- to postpone the season rather than play
without an agreement.  The next date to watch in the NBA is
October 5, when the owners meet in New York (Frank Lawlor,
PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER, 9/27).  A report in Dallas notes that both
sides consider a lockout in the NBA "unlikely" (DALLAS MORNING
NEWS, 9/27).