from Pierre LeBrun of ESPN,

And yes, I still do think a deal will be reached sooner rather than later and there will be a season. Let’s get that out of the way first. ...

Whether or not the emotion gets in the way of a deal, well, that I can’t predict. But purely from a framework basis, this deal is nearly there.

They have essentially agreed on revenue sharing among teams, the players’ pension issues and the "make-whole" provision.

That leaves three key issues unresolved:

1. CBA Term. The league wants a 10-year deal (with a mutual option after eight years); the union responded with eight years with an option after Year 6. To me this is a red herring. It’s not a deal breaker. Frankly, I think most players don’t really care about this one....

2. Contract term limits. The league proposes five-year limits (7 years if it’s your own player) while the players countered with eight years. Deputy commissioner Bill Daly said this was a hill they were willing to die on, that’s how important the owners feel about getting five-year limit on contracts....

3. No compliance buyouts or caps on escrow in transition. Don Fehr brought up this up this week, a desire to either limit escrow early on in the new CBA and allow teams to buy out players but not have that payment count against the salary cap....

more on each point...