NBA players confident that the deal to end Lockout will be ratified
The NBA owners and the National Basketball Players Association on Saturday reached a tentative agreement to bring the lockout to an end.
The bitter labour dispute over a new Collective Bargaining Agreement, which lasted 149 days, could end soon if the deal is ratified by players and owners at large, something players are confident will happen.
Players went through a 5 month ordeal with the lockout that began on July 1st. Negotiations between the two sides went on and off with consistency while time slipped by. First the training camps were cancelled and then
went the pre-season. Things started to turn ugly with regular season games being written off as well.
So now that they finally have a chance to get back to the courts and play basketball, players are primed to take it.
"I think for them to bring it to a vote, they definitely met some things we were asking for," Los Angeles Lakers forward Matt Barnes said. "For us to even to come to a vote, because last time we weren't even close to having a vote.
For us to come to a vote, it's close to as good as it's gonna get. So let's just go out there and play."
When NBA Commissioner David Stern proposed the last deal, a take it or leave it offer, the union rejected it outright without even going to its members. What followed was disbanding of the NBPA and filing of class action lawsuits
by players against the owners.
It was only the threat of litigation that brought Stern and the owners back to the negotiating table.
The current deal is supposedly better than the previous one and that is why it has been brought to a vote by the union. That’s also why Toronto Raptors forward DeMar DeRozan is confident that the NBA season is back on track.
"I think it's gonna get done," DeRozan said. "I think we went through a lot of ups and downs (to get) this far. I think everybody will accept this deal and we'll get back to work.
The players settled in the end for a band of Basketball Related Income share between 49-to-51 percent, down from 57 percent under the previous CBA. They were though always going to have to give back a lot to the owners in the new
CBA and believe they got as much out of the deal as they could.
"We didn't necessarily get everything we want, but that's how it was gonna end. We wasn't get everything, they wasn't gonna get everything. So everybody just had to come to a compromise." DeRozan said.
If the all goes to plan from here on it, the NBA season 2011-2012 will begin on 25th of December.
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