NBA Season's Greetings

You heard it here last: A tentative agreement was reached late Friday night* and it looks like the lockout has been lifted. You could categorize this truce as a "Christmas miracle," since that's the day the shortened season is scheduled to start on, thus confirming that professional basketball is truly the greatest gift of all (because peace on earth wouldn't be much to watch and all our goodwill towards men goes out the window after hearing those donation bells clanging for more than a month).

The plan is for 66 regular season games, with 48 conference games. We like those numbers. We associate 66 with Route 66, one of the most famous highways in America, and reminds of a simpler time when the open road was an adventure and gas was affordable; while 48 calls to mind 48 Hours and reminds us of a better time when Eddie Murphy made funny movies^.

In the end, decimal points may have been the difference. Under the deal, players will receive 51.2% of all basketball-related income, down from 57% last year, but the divide being slightly in labors' favor was essential to ending the lockout. Owners yielded on several key points, including backing off of a hard salary cap that can't be exceeded, reducing the rookie wage scale and eliminating contract extensions prior to trades. From the details that have emerged, it appears the players got a decent deal, better than the one that was supposedly the league's "final offer."

On Twitter, Kevin Durant summed up our rapturous reaction when he wrote: If this is true I am bouta go wake my mom n grandma up and put on a suit and thunder hat and cry! We were tempted to do the same (minus the suit, unless he meant a jump suit) and our loved ones are an 8-hour car ride away.

The impasse is over and fans didn't have to march in Manhattan protesting to prompt progress, although, if necessary, we were prepared to occupy John Wall's street.

*We'll take the credit for this, since a day after snapping the turkey wishbone and asking for an agreement our wish was granted. Maybe the negotiations needed a genie instead of an arbiter. Ok, you caught us in a lie, we didn't break the wishbone or even eat turkey on Thanksgiving, but we did chow down on a bowl of Lucky Charms and that has to count for something.

^These were actually times before we were born and when we were less than 1, respectively.