Today I saw the following on my twitter, “per ESPN’s John Clayton Judge Boylan cancelled next week’s mediation because both sides are engaged in confidential settlement talks.”

I am a little torn as to how to read into this. At first I think it says a lot that the judge canceled his mediation meeting, eluding to real progress being made in these talks. I think the smartest decision the two sides made was not inviting lawyers to this meeting. Lawyers can be very helpful but in this situation I think they prohibit the sides from agreeing to a new CBA deal.

I have always felt from day one that the two sides would get a new deal done, but when was always a question in my mind that I couldn’t answer. I believe the players weren’t in too much of a rush to get into full go mini camps and OTA’s, which could have prolonged a deal from getting done a long time ago.

If the two sides come to an agreement from this secret meeting then I will be pleasantly proven wrong after thinking that the owners were just out to get richer. Only time will tell if this situation will be resolved, but it is odd that a secret meeting is held during a dead time in the negotiations.