They Score! Hoops Season Back on Track

By Forward Staff November 26, 2011

The NBA will tip off its season after all.

Basketball owners and players reached a tentative agreement on a new labor agreement Saturday that would end the lockout and have the league up and running by Dec. 25.

“We’ve reached a tentative understanding,” NBA Commissioner David Stern told reporters. “We’re optimistic that it will hold and we’ll have ourselves an NBA season.”

Owners and players must vote to approve the deal to finalize the agreement. Players will have to ratify the deal to make it official.

The deal was signed after negotiators for owners and players talked for 15 hours on Friday. The framework of a deal is in place but there are B-list issues, including drug testing and early entry draft age that both sides still have to agree upon.

“Once we present it (to our players) we’re confident they will support it,” said union executive director Billy Hunter.

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.

In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.

At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.

Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we need 500 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.

Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO