The NBA's negotiations with its players union on a new contract to replace the one expiring on June 30 have stalled, according to the league on Wednesday.

"Since we are at a loss as to how we can possibly reach a new deal that is in any way consistent with the principal terms that we have been discussing for many months, there are no further meetings scheduled at this time," NBA deputy commissioner Russ Granik said in a statement that raised the specter of a potentially damaging lockout.

The NBA and NBA Players Association have met many times since the All-Star break in February in an effort to reach an agreement before the current collective bargaining agreement expires.

Commissioner David Stern, who had wanted a new agreement in place before the end of the season, recently said during a broadcast of an NBA playoff game that he had downgraded his assessment of achieving that goal from "optimistic" to "hopeful".

Granik charged that the union, after meeting with a group of player agents in April, informed the league it "could no longer agree to a previously-committed five-year rule on length of contracts.

"Then, last week, after promising a written proposal to form the basis of a new agreement, the union instead advised us orally that it needed to backtrack on several other essential terms that had already been resolved," Granik said.

The current collective bargaining agreement, now in its seventh year, was reached after unprecedented discord.

Source: Xinhua