Stern believes the NFL’s labour dispute, which he called a “mess”, was not helped by a lack of urgency to get a deal done before its collective bargaining agreement expired. However, Stern has pledged to accelerate negotiations with the NBA’s players to seal a new deal before the June 30 expiration date.

“It seemed that at the end of the bargaining between the NFL and the players, one got the sense that in the last day or two they had closed the gap,” Stern told The Associated Press. “I don't know if that's accurate or not, but that's what I read.”

Stern added: “You wonder as an outsider whether it would have been a good thing to close that gap a few days earlier, a couple of weeks earlier so that you had the opportunity and the plan to do that.”

However, Stern has insisted he would be prepared to lock the players out if a deal cannot be reached. “The league is my client, not my vehicle to a legacy,” Stern said. The league is projecting a US$300 million loss this season and the NBA’s initial proposal in February 2010 for a new collective bargaining agreement sought to reduce player salary costs by about $750 million annually.