With pre-season games just around the corner, the NBA sees an exceptionally good chance of having their referees locked out, and replacement referees being used in their place after contract negotiations appear to have failed.

Lamell McMorris, the chief negotiator for the referees said today that the chances of a lockout appear “imminent and unavoidable,” according to a report this evening on The New York Times website. The league’s referees voted 57-0 late Wednesday night in Chicago to reject the latest proposal by the NBA, and stayed “locked themselves in”, staying overnight to hammer out their counterproposal which had another $1 million in concessions. McMorris claims the NBRA agreed to $2.5 million of the $3.2 million in concessions the league was seeking on Weds. The league rejected the latest proposal, setting up the real possibility of the referees being locked out. If so, replacements would be used for the first time since 1995.

According to The New York Times report:

“The N.B.A. concluded in our last phone conversation that there was no need to talk further, because we’ve reached a stalemate as it relates to some of the systemic changes they’d like to make,” McMorris said Thursday afternoon. “So it appears that a lockout is imminent and unavoidable.”

The NBA has not commented yet regarding the ongoing negotiations.

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