NBA owners, players reach tentative deal
By Jeff Zillgitt, USA TODAY Updated <1m ago
The NBA and locked-out players returned to talks Friday, and in the 15th hour, early Saturday, came away with a tentative agreement to end the lockout on Day 149.
The participants for this session were, for the league, NBA Commissioner David Stern, Deputy Commissioner Adam Silver, San Antonio Spurs owner and labor relations chairman Peter Holt and attorneys Rick Buchanan and Dan Rube and for the players, trade association chief Billy Hunter, trade association president Derek Fisher, trade association vice president Mo Evans, economist Kevin Murphy and attorney Ron Klempner.
"We're optimistic … that the NBA season will come to pass on Dec. 25," Stern said early Saturday.
The players had dissolved the union after rejecting the last owner's proposal Nov. 14. To make this deal work, the union must be recons uted and lawsuits the players filed against the league must be settled. There are also so-called B issues, such as player conduct and drug testing, that need to be worked out.
Going into this session the hope from the owners was to get a 66-game schedule.
"It's our hope that we're going to play some games this season," Boston Celtics owner Wyc Grousbeck had said Thursday to USA TODAY's J. Michael Falgoust. "We regret that we haven't been able to reach an agreement yet. We know that that has an effect on fans and business partners and people who work around our arenas."
The sides first met Tuesday, their first formal communication since Nov. 14, when the players rejected the owners' last offer of the roughly 50-50 split of BRI and the restrictions on how that money would be distributed. The players disbanded the union and filed two an rust lawsuits, which were merged into one complaint filed in Minneapolis by attorney David Boies.
Compe ive balance is a major priority for the owners. To get that, the NBA wants to reduce massive payroll discrepancies between the highest and lowest spending clubs with restrictions on clubs paying the luxury tax.
Some of those restrictions in the league's last proposal:
•Limited use of the mid-level exception — $3 million a year for a maximum of three years for taxpaying clubs compared to $5 million a year for three or four years for non-taxpayers.
•A punitive luxury tax that escalates for each $5 million a club spends above the tax threshold.
•Taxpaying clubs would not be able to acquire players via sign-and-trade after the first two years of the deal.
The union had argued those measures restrict player movement and serve, in essence, as a hard salary cap.
A deal soon was needed to keep the attractive Christmas Day TV slate: first, the Celtics at the New York Knicks on ESPN; followed by a doubleheader on ABC — the Miami Heat at the champion Dallas Mavericks, then the Chicago Bulls at the Los Angeles Lakers.
Stern has said it would take about 30 days to start the season after a CBA is reached.
Thirty days out from Dec. 25 was Friday.
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@ spurs fans. Why are you guys happy about this? Your team isn't a contender anymore. 
