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Are we inching closer to starting the NBA season on time?

NBA owners and players will meet Friday and perhaps through the weekend, with commissioner David Stern warning there are “enormous consequences at play” as the sides try to preserve an on-time start to the season.

Union executive director Billy Hunter has called for his executive committee members, as well as some of the league’s superstars such as Kobe Bryant and LeBron James, to meet Friday in New York, sources told ESPN The Magazine’s Chris Broussard.

Stern also was slated to meet with league owners, and then the owners and players might meet with one another, sources told Broussard.

Miami guard Dwyane Wade has committed to be part of Friday’s meeting. And Derek Fisher said the players’ executive committee could be joined by more of the league’s biggest names.

With that said, the lockout entered its 90th day Wednesday. During Tuesday’s bargaining session in New York, Stern offered a new proposal to the players’ union that modestly budged from the owners’ long-held position on establishing a hard cap, league sources familiar with the negotiations told ESPN The Magazine’s Ric Bucher.

With the Nov. 1 season opener a little more than a month away, Stern said there would be “a lot of risk” to not having an agreement by the end of this week. But both sides said there hasn’t been enough progress to put them on the verge of a deal.

“I shouldn’t deal with hypotheticals here,” he said. “I’m focused on let’s get the two committees in and see whether they can either have a season or not have a season, and that’s what’s at risk this weekend.”

“All I’d say to that is that there are enormous consequences at play here on the basis of the weekend,” Stern said.

Conditions to be brought up during talks include:

• The “Larry Bird exception,” which allows teams to exceed the cap to retain their own free agents regardless of their other committed salaries, is limited to one player per team per season.

• The mid-level exception, which the league valued at $7.4 million last season and could be extended by as many as five years, is reduced in length and size.

• The current luxury tax, the $1-for-$1 penalty a team must pay to the league for the amount it exceeds the salary cap, is to be severely increased.

Needless to say, this is certainly a key period for the National Basketball Association in hopes of finally ending the lockout.

Reserve the Nov. 1 date (start of the NBA season) and continue to hold it open.  Make no other plans expect for watching NBA hoops!  Make it a point of emphasis!

Keep your hopes high for the start of the season to go as scheduled, featuring a doubleheader of Derrick Rose against the defending NBA champs and Kobe vs. Durant at Staples.