NBA Lockout Close to Over, Tentative Agreement Reached

Well ladies and gents, the NBA is back in business.

Thank God!

In what became a horrific and unending stalemate between the the owners and players union, filled with nasty bickering, little progress and fear that the entire 2011-2012 season would be lost, the lockout finally ended late Friday night when the owners and players tentatively agreed to a new CBA at 3 a.m., meaning that training camp will start as soon as December 9, if the majority of the owners (29) and the players (450) agree to vote on the new legislation.

If the NBA training camp season begins in two weeks, there is still a chance that the season will open on Christmas Day in a truncated 66 game regular season, highlighted by the Knicks hosting the Boston Celtics, and Miami Heat paying a visit to the Dallas Mavericks in a rematch of the 2011 NBA Finals.

After disbanding as a union and filing an antitrust suit against the NBA, the Players Association needs to reform as a union and hold a vote to ratify the deal. The terms of the agreement included a 50-50 revenue split between the owners and players, a source said.

The negotiating session nearly came undone in the early moments on Friday night when Players Association counsel Jeffrey Kessler told Stern and the NBA’s negotiating team through a speaker phone that the players wanted to move back to a 51 percent revenue split, a league source told Y! Sports. Stern, labor relations committee chairman Peter Holt and deputy commissioner Adam Silver termed the proposal “unacceptable,” and soon left the conference room.

The players were feeling out how much leverage their antitrust lawsuits gave them, sources said, but it’s long been clear that Stern didn’t have ownership support to go beyond 50 percent. The players had a 57 percent share of the revenue split in the last collective bargaining agreement, and the move to 50-50 could shift as much as $3 billion to the owners over the course of a 10-year agreement. Yahoo sports.

With the NBA season now back in fold, it is hard not to get excited about the new season. Last year was the most successful year in the NBA since the late 1990s. There was legitimate concern over the years that the 1999 lockout had such a negative impact on the game, that it took a very long time for the fans to come back to the sport. Not only did the '99 lockout steer away fans, but it was also the end of the Michael Jordan era in baseketball, as well as the beginning of the end of the Knicks and Pacers runs through the NBA. The league became dominated by the Western Conference, with the Lakers and Spurs winning most of the time over lackluster competition from the East.

That is not the case now. The NBA in 2011-2012 is full of star power and the balance of power is fairly even. Sure the Lakers and Spurs are older and not as dominant, but that didn't stop people from watching last year; in fact, people kind of perfer it. Instead people were fasinated by the Miami Heat dream team combo of LeBron James, Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh, fasinated by the resurection of the New York Knicks, the return to prominance of the Boston Celtics and their rivalry with the L.A. Lakers, as well as great play from the likes of Dirk Nowitzki of the Dallas Mavericks and Derrick Rose of the Chicago Bulls.

The fans should return to the game a lot quicker because the quality is much better than it was in 1999.