NBA Lockout: Owners, Players Agree To End Lockout, Return Pistons To Court

The NBA owners and players began meeting on Friday at noon and didn't stop until reaching an agreement 15 hours later at 3:00AM Saturday morning. Yes, the NBA parties have agreed to a tentative deal that will end the NBA lockout and launch a free agency and training camp frenzy so the season can begin on Christmas Day.

As Adrian Wojnarowski reports, the deal must be finalized and approved by both parties, but commissioner David Stern expects that to happen.

"We're optimistic that the [agreement] will hold and we'll have ourselves an NBA season," NBA commissioner David Stern said at a brief news conference held in New York with Players Association executive director Billy Hunter and president Derek Fisher(notes).

Free agency and training camps will start on Dec. 9, Stern said. Under the current agreement, the regular season would have a 66-game schedule that begins on Christmas Day with three games: Boston Celtics at the New York Knicks; Miami Heat at the Dallas Mavericks; and Chicago Bulls at the Los Angeles Lakers.

The Detroit Pistons should be busy starting, well now, as they decide how to move forward this season with a cast of veterans making big dollars while working rookies Brandon Knight, Kyle Singler and Vernon Macklin into the mix. Of course, that all depends on the final salary cap number and limits in the NBA labor agreement so this story is just beginning. 

The Pistons will presumably begin their season on December 26th since the league is trying to squeeze in a 66-game season, but that is just speculation since the schedule will need to be redrawn by the league.

NBA Cancels More Games As Players File Lawsuits

If the NBA lockout wasn't messy over the past few months, the decision by the players to decertify the union on Monday has certainly put the negotiations there now. The NBA decided to cancel more games on Tuesday and, shortly thereafter, players including Carmelo Anthony, Kevin Durant and Chauncey Billups filed lawsuits against the league.

The league has informed teams that all games are canceled through Dec. 15, leaving the possibility of a 72-game schedule still intact if some sort of miracle happens in the next couple of days. Considering the NBA needs about a month to start the new season, however, it was more the calendar cancelling games as opposed to the league itself.

The lawsuits that were filed Tuesday night included serious allegations against the league.

The plaintiffs argue that the lockout "constitutes an illegal group boycott, price-fixing agreement, and/or restraint of trade in violation of the Sherman Act" and that the owners' final offer for a new CBA would have "wiped out the competitive market for most NBA players."

This might actually get worse before it gets better.

NBA Lockout: NBPA Rejects 'Final' Deal From Owners, Will Sue And Decertify

On Monday, the NBA Players Association met to discuss the latest proposal (the second final proposal, as it happens) from the league owners in regards to a potential deal to end the lockout. Such a deal could not be agreed upon, though, and the players have officially rejected the deal, and will file anti-trust action against the league. Derek Fisher told the media, "This is where it stops for us as a union."

Said union will disband immediately, and the NBA is likely to be sued for anti-trust violations in the next couple of days. The players association will be transformed into a trade association, in the same way that the NFL players association had done during their lockout earlier in 2011. It's a critical comparison, seeing as the NFL, at this point in the proceedings, had only lost one game - a preseason Hall of Fame game, and the NBA has already lost a two weeks of games.

Before this meeting and this "final final" deal, Commissioner David Stern commented that this deal would be the last one that included figured like the 50% split - saying that the league would soon be talking about the 47% figure if this deal is rejected.

As Adrian Wojnarowski says on Twitter:

The chances of losing the entire 2011-12 season has suddenly become the likelyhood.    

NBA Lockout Update: Ultimatum Offer, 72-Game Season On Table For Union

After rejecting David Stern's latest offer, the NBA owners and players met again on Wednesday and Thursday to see if they could work out their differences on some of the major issues. While Wednesday came and went without a deal in place, most signs indicated progress toward a deal was achieved.

According to Yahoo!'s Adrian Wojnarowski, movement was made on three system issues in particular. 

David Stern's ultimatum deadline was Wednesday night, but that passed and Stern said the clock was stopped while the two sides continued to negotiate matters today. While Stern hasn't presented the owners with any final draft of a deal,  they did come out of meetings with an offer for the union to review.

Billy Hunter said, 'it isn't the greatest proposal,' but he feels obligated to take it to the players. If the union takes the deal by Monday or Tuesday, Stern says there can be a 72-game season which would start on December 15.  

Stern suggested that this would be the last proposal before reverting back to the hard cap and 47-percent BRI for the players, the above-referenced ultimatum he had previously set for Wednesday night.

Early speculation is that the players probably will not accept this offer, as the owners barely moved on the bigger system issues, but more negotiations could take place next week before Stern carries out his (second) ultimatum.

NBA Lockout Update: Union Rejects Owners' Offer

NBA players rejected David Stern's latest offer, a day before the Commissioner's Nov. 9 ultimatum deadline, which threatened that offers would only get worse from here on.

Embattled union executive director Billy Hunter reiterated that the deal was not fair for the players.

"The players are clearly of the mind that it's an unacceptable proposal," union executive director Billy Hunter said. "But because of their commitment to the game and their desire to play, they're saying to us that we want you to go back, see if you can go back, get a better deal."

The players' association president Derek Fisher does not see a way of getting a deal done between now and end of business Wednesday, and hopes to meet with Stern soon.

The union did not conduct a formal vote of the players assembled in the room Tuesday, but sources told ESPN.com's Marc Stein that the group reached more of an informal "everyone agrees" position that authorizes Hunter and Fisher to accept a 50-50 split of basketball-related income in future negotiations as long as the league makes some concessions on certain system issues.

The Pistons have not been specifically in the lockout news much since the recently-minted @NBA_Labor Twitter account went on the defensive and offensive against (surprise, surprise) Charlie Villanueva last week.

NBA Lockout Update: Players Have Until Wednesday To Accept Current Deal

The Detroit Pistons are one of 30 teams awaiting the end of the NBA lockout as negotiations continue to grow more and more complex. The next deadline on this season happening sooner rather than later comes on Wednesday as commissioner David Stern has said the deal will get worse after that.

Stern has implied that would happen a few times already during the lockout, but the face of the current NBA went on SportsCenter late Monday afternoon to get his message out to a wider array of people. Mike Prada of Bullets Forever transcribed the commissioner's comments.

On the deadline: "We think there's a great offer on table, and we told the players, 'It's getting late.' The only rational thing is to make that deal because given what is going on in our business and our industry, it will get worse from there. We told the players ... an offer of 47% will become operative w/ hard cap in effect [if they don't accept]."

Stern's appearance on ESPN probably doesn't mean a whole lot, but his message probably did reach a wider audience -- including, probably, some of the players not heavily involved in the negotiations just waiting to report to training camp.

NBA Lockout: Weekend Negotiations End With No Deal, Ultimatum From David Stern

NBA Lockout Talks To Resume On Saturday Between Players, Owners

Stop us if you've heard this one before. After a promising bit of news a week ago regarding the NBA lockout, talks broke off without a deal done. You have heard it before - the week before that week, when the same news came out and was subsequently distinguished. Now that the opening of the NBA season has been passed over, things are truly looking bleak, but there is a bit of good news, to an extent:

Courtesy of Ken Berg of CBS Sports:

Roger Mason emerges from @TheNBPA meeting and confirms talks with league resume Saturday.    

After talks broke off, and then word leaking that the players association was "fractured", this has got to be good news. Will it eventually lead to a deal getting done and some games being played by, say, December? It's far, far too early to tell at this point, but it's definitely a step in the right direction that the two sides are able to talk and that, of course, the players association is still functioning as an entity. 

NBA Lockout: Deal 'Within Striking Distance'

After the three-day mediated talks between the owners and players ended last week, this NBA fan was preparing for the worst -- a canceled season. I think that was the general concern amongst all NBA fans after two more weeks of the NBA season were reportedly canned and speculation mounted that the entire season was in serious jeopardy.

Like a Rodney Stuckey to China rumor, bizarro news started to surface that the owners and players were meeting into the wee hours of the night and making "significant progress" on system issues. After 7.5 more hours of negotiations today, there are still "a couple sticking points" to work out, but Billy Hunter thinks a deal is "within striking distance."

When David Stern was asked after Thursday's negotiations if he knew what a new deal would look like, Stern responded, "Yes," and added that he believes it would be a huge failure if a deal was not reached within the next few days.

Now, Stern tempered propagating optimism by giving the classic lawyerly 'there's no guarantee a deal will get done,' but he also reassured wondering fans that both sides will do their darnedest. The owners and players are expected to discuss everything on Friday -- including the BRI, which was apparently not discussed yesterday or today -- and are willing to go as long as it takes until a deal is reached. 

Unfortunately, "as long as it takes" has reportedly already taken four weeks of the NBA season. Let's just hope it stops there.

NBA Lockout: Pistons Lose Two More Weeks Of Games

After labor talks between the owners and players broke down late last week it was likely that more games would be canceled during the 2011-12 season. That will be confirmed tomorrow as the league is expected to announce the cancellation of all games through November 28:

According to the Daily News' source, this latest cancellation would total at least 102 games and run through Nov. 28.

The source told the Daily News that the NBA will announce the latest cancellation of games on Tuesday.

There are no new rounds of negotiations scheduled. Already all games through November 14th have been canceled, but now the first four weeks of the season will be gone.The Detroit Pistons have already lost a number of games, but the following games will now be affected by this latest cancellation:

Nov. 15 vs. Phoenix

Nov. 18 vs. Atlanta

Nov. 10 vs. Indiana

Nov. 22 at Indiana

Nov. 23 vs. Portland

Nov. 25 vs. Washington

Nov. 27 vs. Boston

NBA Lockout: Both Sides Possibly Near Resolution

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