Originally Posted by Ravage

Its sucks right now. The owners don't care if there is a season or not because 1) they'll still get the revenue from the TV contract deals whether they're shown or not and 2) they don't have to pay the players.

For the players they want to play in order to get paid. While I doubt the players will really want to play a reduced 8-game season, they'll take it if it means they'll get paid.
Also the players don't want to go to an 18-game format because it will leave them open to the next negotiation talks when they want increase it even more and probably not get the pay increase for it.