NBA, Players Reach 'Tentative' Deal

(NewsCore) - Commissioner David Stern declared early Saturday that a "tentative settlement" was reached between the players and owners to end the NBA lockout, paving the way for a Christmas Day start to a 66-game season.

The surprise breakthrough toward a new collective bargaining agreement (CBA) came after 15 hours of talks in New York that ended at 3:00am local time Saturday, the 149th day of the labor dispute.

"We're optimistic that it will hold and we'll have ourselves an NBA season," Stern said at the outset of a joint news conference, while confirming that the rescheduled season would begin with a showcase Dec. 25 triple-header.

The season's first tipoff will take place Christmas Day at Madison Square Garden, where the Knicks will play the Celtics, the New York Post reported. The Miami Heat and Dallas Mavericks will also meet in Texas, and the Chicago Bulls will face off against the Los Angeles Lakers.

The head of the former players' union, Billy Hunter, said, "We've reached a tentative litigation settlement. We'll turn it over to the lawyers and work out all the details."

The proposed deal, first reported by CBSSports.com, will be followed by the reformation of the players' union following its decertification earlier this month, allowing the new CBA to be finalized and ratified before free agency can begin. Training camps will open Dec. 9.

"We're on an incredibly tight schedule, as you might imagine, between now and opening on Christmas," said Adam Silver, the NBA's deputy commissioner, according to the Post.

The settlement, which also must be ratified by the owners, will see both sides dismiss their respective antitrust lawsuits against each other.

Neither side would discuss the nature of the new agreement, in particular where the concessions were made, until briefing their members. A majority on each side is needed to approve the agreement.

Stern was joined by his deputy commissioner, Adam Silver, Spurs owner Peter Holt, the chairman of the labor relations committee, and attorneys Rick Buchanan and Dan Rube in the marathon session in Manhattan.

The players were represented by Hunter, president Derek Fisher, vice president Maurice Evans, attorney Ron Klempner and economist Kevin Murphy.

News of the handshake agreement was unexpected, given that relations in the dispute regularly had soured and previous settlement opportunities had been passed up.

From the July 1 outset of the lockout, Stern had described the two parties' positions as representing "a huge philosophical divide."

Among other changes to the way the league is run, team owners wanted the league revenue split of 57 percent to 43 percent in favor of the players to be balanced at 50 percent each.

Games started to be removed from the 82-game season in early October, and the crisis escalated Nov. 14, when players disbanded their union and announced they planned to take the dispute to court.