On Nov. 24, the NBA lifted a 139 day lockout that had canceled 300 games and caused millions in revenue loss. The main reason over the lockout was league revenue sharing.
With the previous deal in place, the players recived 57 percent of league earnings from things such as television contracts and fans. The new deal in place evens out revenue sharing and also put a harder salary cap on teams, restricting the amount of money the can spend on free agents.
Since the season was originally planned to start Nov. 1, the lockout postponed the season debut to Christmas Day. As a result, the season has been compressed to a 62 game schedule as opposed to the original 82. Free agency has also been affected. With training camps about to open, players and teams have been frantically rushing to work out deals with old and new player’s contracts.
This really hurts players like Chris Paul, who was going to work out a deal with the Lakers, Rockets, and Hornets that would eventually send him to Los Angeles. Paul was sent to L.A. but is playing for the Clippers.
Since the labor disagreement went on for so long, the league and players reached a deal just in time for the NBA to salvage the season. There was a great debate over the shortened season, considering that the playoffs were still scheduled to start on time.
This causes every team to have at least one series of a back-to-back-to-back set of games, including roadtrips. This is the first labor dispute since the 1198- 99 season were there was a fifty game season.