Basketball:National Basketball Association commissioner David Stern announced today that a "tentative understanding" has been reached to end the five-month lockout in America.
The scheduled start to the new season has been significantly delayed owing to the wrangling involved in negotiating a new collective bargaining agreement between the league and the players’ association.
However, after a 15-hour meeting between parties on Friday, an end now looks in sight, with the possibility of the NBA season beginning on Christmas Day.
The agreement is yet to be ratified but Stern said in a press conference: “We’ve reached a tentative understanding that is subject to a variety of approvals and very complex machinations, but we’re optimistic that that will all come to pass and that the NBA season will begin on December 25th with a triple-header, but I won’t give you the details just yet.
“We’re very pleased that we’ve come this far, there’s still a lot of work to be done with a lot of committees, player groups and the like but we’re optimistic that it will hold and we’ll have ourselves an NBA season.”
Players’ union executive director Billy Hunter said: “We’re happy that we’ve been able to reach a tentative litigation settlement with regard to many issues that are pending before the various courts.
“We’re going to turn it all over to the lawyers and have them work out all the details and we’ll be able to then talk with you (the media) further as the process proceeds.”