Tweets from Chad Ford and Chris Palmer report that the lockout is over.  Basketball is back!  Let the feeding frenzy begin!  Still waiting on the exact details of the new CBA to be released.  Sounds like just a handshake deal for now.  Looks like we get to open up a new basketball season on Christmas morning after all.  Season will be 66 games long and will start on December 25th.  Hopefully the Suns are ready to get back to work!

Rich Bucher on ESPN right now (3:38 AM EST Saturday 11/26) confirming that a tentative deal HAS been reached pending ratification.   He's reporting that the owners "came back" on a couple of the issues but that he's not sure of the exact details.  Sounds like the agreed upon BRI split is the 49-51 band.  That means the players gave back about $300 million dollars a year.  Most of the system issues also went in the owners favor.  Compared to the old deal the owners appear to have scored a victory, but for all intents and purposes they are both still winners.  Everyone wins by nature of the deal getting done.

Celtics-Knicks, Heat-Mavs, Bulls-Lakers scheduled to kick off the season in a Christmas day smorgasbord.

Training camps and free agency will open concurrently on Friday December 9th.

Open thread guys!  Let's play ball.  More details to follow.