Sweet baby Jesus!!! After an exhausting, 149-day work stoppage that threatened to wipe out the first full season in NBA history, the league’s owners and players agreed to a tentative new collective bargaining agreement, commissioner David Stern and union executive director Billy Hunter announced early Saturday. The joint announcement, delivered by Stern, Hunter, deputy commissioner Adam Silver, San Antonio Spurs owner Peter Holt and union executives Derek Fisher and Maurice Evans just after 3 a.m. in a conference room at the New York offices of Weil, Gottschalk & Manages LLP, came after a tumultuous, 15-hour negotiating session that, according to those in the room, nearly derailed several times during the evening. “Despite some bumps this evening,” said a bleary-eyed Stern, “the greater good required us to knock ourselves out and come to this tentative understanding.” While both sides were mum on the details, citing a need to resolve the lawsuit the players filed against the league this month and get the approval of both the players and the NBA’s Board of Governors, here is what we know: Source Flip the page for some of the details that are known thus far.
