The NBA owners’ lockout has come to an end after the league’s Board of Governors voted 25-5 to ratify the tentative collective bargaining agreement agreed to last month.
NBA Commissioner David Stern and Deputy Commissioner Adam Silver announced in a joint press conference Thursday that the NBA Board of Governors has ratified the tentative collective bargaining agreement the league and the players agreed to in November, ending the owners’ five month lockout of players.
The new collective bargaining agreement will last for six years, with an additional four years possible in the unlikely event neither side opts out after the sixth season. NBA owners opted out of the 1995 CBA less than two years after it was officially signed, and declined to extend the 2005 CBA an additional season.
The 2011 NBA owners’ lockout ranks as the second-longest work stoppage in league history and resulted in the formal cancellation of the first six weeks of the season. The NBA has had four work stoppages in its history, with all four being owner-imposed lockouts.
The abbreviated 2011-12 NBA season will begin on December 25, with each team playing 66 games. David Stern has now presided over two shortened seasons in his tenure as NBA commissioner, a record of futility exceeded by only one other active commissioner — the NHL’s Gary Bettman, who presided over a shortened season in 1994-95 and a lost season in 2004-05.
(NBA.com)
