NBA owners and players have reached a tentative agreement to end the 149-day lockout and now hope to begin the delayed season on Christmas Day. Neither side revealed how the impasse had been broken, but they said the only words players and fans wanted to hear. "We want to play basketball," said commissioner David Stern.
After a secret meeting earlier this week, the sides met for more than 15 hours on Friday to try to save the season. This handshake deal, however, must still be ratified by both owners and players. Stern said it was "subject to a variety of approvals and very complex machinations, but we're optimistic that will all come to pass and that the NBA season will begin 25th December."
Barring a change in scheduling, the 2011-12 season will open with the Boston Celtics at New York Knicks, followed by Miami at Dallas in an NBA finals rematch before MVP Derrick Rose and Chicago close the tripleheader against Kobe Bryant and the Lakers. The league plans a 66-game season and aims to open training camps 9th December.
Just 12 days after talks broke down and Stern declared the NBA might be heading for a "nuclear winter," he sat next to union executive director Billy Hunter to announce the deal. "We thought it was in both of our best interests to try to reach a resolution and save the game," Hunter said.
A majority on each side is needed to approve the agreement. The NBA needs 15 of the 29 owners (the league owns the New Orleans Hornets) to approve the deal. Stern said the labour committee plans to discuss the agreement later today and expects them to endorse it to the full board.
The union needs a majority of its 430-plus members. That process is complicated because the players dissolved the union on the 14th November and must must drop their antitrust lawsuit and reform the union before voting on the deal. Because the union has been disbanded, a new collective bargaining agreement can only be completed once the union has reformed. Drug testing and other issues must still be negotiated between the league and the players.
"We're very pleased we've come this far," Stern said. "There's still a lot of work to be done."
Participating in the talks for the league were Stern, deputy commissioner Adam Silver, Spurs owner Peter Holt, the chairman of the labour relations committee, and attorneys Rick Buchanan and Dan Rube. The players were represented by executive director Billy Hunter, president Derek Fisher, vice president Maurice Evans, attorney Ron Klempner and economist Kevin Murphy.
"This was not an easy agreement for anyone. The owners came in having suffered substantial losses and feeling the system wasn't working fairly across all teams," Silver said. "I certainly know the players had strong views about expectations in terms of what they should be getting from the system. It required a lot of compromise from both parties' part, and I think that's what we saw today."