NBA Set To Resume Play On Christmas Day

This is breaking news from NBC Sports:

Finally, we are going to have NBA basketball again.

After more than 15 hours of negotiations Friday into Saturday morning (following a week of talks), the NBA owners and players have reached a handshake deal on a new NBA collective bargaining agreement the sides announced.

“We’ve reached a tentative understanding,” said NBA commissioner David Stern.

NBA games will start Dec. 25 — Christmas Day — with a triple-header and there will be a 66 game season.

There are a lot of details still to be worked out — first up are all the “B” list issues such as draft age and drug testing, things the sides do not all agree on but are not serious enough to block a deal. Then the NBA’s players union has to be reformed (remembered they disolved to allowing anti-trust lawsuits) then the owners and players will have to vote on a final version of the agreement.

All that is going to take 10-days to two weeks. The lockout will not officially be over until then.

That will be followed by a condensed free agency period and a couple weeks of training camps.

But on Christmas day we will get to open NBA basketball.