NEW YORK — Negotiators for NBA owners and players will likely meet again next week. And the league will have to offer something different to interest the players.

The union has been holding regional meetings, informing its members just how harsh it believes the owners’ proposal is for a new collective bargaining agreement. The league is seeking significant changes to the salary structure as a way to eliminate its losses, which it says totaled $300 million last season.

Players have balked at the demands, and players’ association vice president Maurice Evans of Washington said Wednesday that when players are shown what the league wants, they are unified in their stance.

“When we’re able to explain exactly what David Stern is asking for, it becomes so clear and evident that we cannot take this deal, and guys would be willing to not participate, to not play, if that’s the offer to us,” Evans told The Associated Press in a phone interview from Chicago, where the union was set to hold another meeting Thursday.

After that, Evans said the players hope to have a bargaining session with the league’s negotiators next week, but that a specific day hadn’t been locked down yet.

There has been only session that included leadership from both sides since the league locked out the players on July 1 after the expiration of the old CBA. Stern said during a podcast with ESPN.com earlier this month that progress needed to be made by the end of Labor Day weekend or “we may be headed to a bad place.”

Evans said one of reasons for the regional meetings is to refute some of the things the commissioner said in the interview,