NBA pre-season cancelled

The NBA cancelled the remainder of pre-season games on Tuesday and will wipe out the first two weeks of the regular season if there is no labour agreement by Monday.

Four weeks before the scheduled November 1 start of the 2011-2012 campaign, the latest negotiations broke off between NBA players and club owners on Tuesday with all 114 pre-season games wiped out.

NBA Commissioner David Stern and Deputy Commissioner Adam Silver made the announcement after owners and players met for about four hours but came no closer to ending the lockout.

Bargaining committees failed in a last-ditch bid to solve a shutdown over financial issues that have lasted for 96 days, since owners locked out players after a prior deal ended July 1.

"By Monday we will have no choice but to cancel the first two weeks of the season," Stern said.

NBA owners had previously called off pre-season training camps and wiped out 43 pre-season games through to October 15.

With Tuesday bringing two more lost weeks of exhibitions, Stern estimated the NBA has already lost $US200 million ($A210 million).

"We're looking down the barrel of losing regular-season games," Stern said. "There's an extraordinary hit coming to the owners and the players."

Billy Hunter, executive director of the NBA players association, said talks might not resume for a month or two.

If true, it would most likely mean no NBA games until next year at the earliest, he said.

What will be gone by Monday, if Stern makes good on his threat and talks do not make a surprise resumption, are the first two weeks of the NBA season, the first games lost to a financial dispute since the 1998-99 NBA season.

Stern said talks collapsed after players showed no interest in a possible 50-50 split of basketball-related revenues. Players had received 57 per cent of such income in the previous contract.

Owners wanted a hard salary cap rather than the current exemption-filled system and a greater share of revenues from what last season was a $US3.8 billion ($A4billion) business.

They claim losses of $US300 million ($A315 million) last season, saying only eight of 30 teams made a profit.