SCOTT JACOBS

As of this very moment, there is labor peace at last in the National Basketball Association.  The NBA and NBAPA managed to salvage their season with productive Black Friday talks, and today held a press conference to announce what NBA fans have been waiting for way too long — that a tentative agreement has been reached on a new Collective Bargaining Agreement.

The skinny is this: The usual NBA season of 82 games, will be slimed down to 66, which after everything is said and done, might not be such a bad thing after all. Training camps will open on December 9th, and the season opens up on Christmas with a mega-tripleheader, leaving this fan to wonder if the NBA could ask for a better slate of games to start the new year?

Celtics-Knicks, Heat-Mavericks, and Bulls-Lakers sets the stage for what should be a unique and entertaining NBA season.

Like the NFL, free agency will be wild, with the period set to open December 9th.  That’s just 16 days before the start of the season.  Could you imagine if the 2010 Free Agency period started roughly 2 weeks before the season?  My goodness that would have been madness.

I’m most curious to see how teams spend their money this short offseason.  Basketball is a sport reliant on a few individuals, and developing chemistry in such a short period will be difficult.  That’s why I don’t think you’ll see teams throw lavish dollars around until next year, when guys like Chris Paul, Deron Williams, and Dwight Howard will all be free agents.

But that’s for next year.  For this year there will be hoops.  Hallelujah.

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