After a week of secret meetings, and more of 15 hours of negotiations on Friday into Saturday, the NBA owners and players finally reached a deal on a new collective bargaining agreement the sides announced. The deal ends the 149-day lockout and sets up a 66-game season starting on Christmas Day.

“We’ve reached a tentative understanding,” said NBA commissioner David Stern. ”(The deal) is subject to a variety of approvals and very complex machinations. We’re optimistic that will all come to pass and the NBA season will begin Dec. 25.”

The settlement came seemingly out of nowhere, with the announcement of the deal coming at 3:37 a.m. on Saturday morning. The two sides had been negotiating since last Tuesday in New York.

“It was a rollercoaster ride,” Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry said. “I followed every negotiating session and got my hopes up many times.”

The settlement does not mean that the lockout is officially over, as a final version still needs to be ratified by the owners and Player’s Association.

There are still numerous smaller issues that need to be worked out, including the minimum draft age and drug testing, but those things that are not serious enough to block the deal. There is also the matter of the players’ union being formed, since they dissolved to begin to file federal antitrust lawsuits against the league.

An abbreviated training camp and a free agency period is set to begin on Dec. 9. This could set off a feeding frenzy that would be even wilder than the NFL’s quick post-lockout turnaround in August.

“We thought it was in both of our interest to try to reach a resolution and save the game and to be able to provide the mind of superb entertainment the NBA historically has provided,” Player’s Association Director Billy Hunter said.

The season itself will begin with a Christmas Day triple-header — Celtics vs. Knicks at Madison Square Garden; an NBA Finals rematch between the Heat and NBA Champion Mavericks in Dallas; and the Bulls face the Lakers in the late game.While the details are still sketchy, according to Chris Broussard of ESPN, the players got a little more than 50 percent of league revenue – BRI – but not 51 percent, which is what they had been demanding. It is apparently going to be in the 49-51 percent range, but will essentially fall as 50/50.

“The reason for the settlement was we’ve got fans, we’ve got players who would like to play and we’ve got others who are dependent on us,” Stern said. “And it’s always been our goal to reach a deal that was fair to both sides and get us playing as soon as possible, but that took a little time.”

In the previous labor deal the players got 57 percent of the league revenue. This deal is a 10-year deal, with an opt out option after six.

The owners say they were losing money ($300 million last year) and wanted a bigger cut of the more than $4 billion in annual revenue the league makes. This deal should help them cover those losses.

NBA deputy commissioner Adam Silver said that the deal will also prevent big market, big-spending teams – such as the Heat, Knicks, Lakers, Bulls, Celtics, and defending NBA champion Mavericks – from monopolizing the free agent market. There are no exact details as of now, but there will be a much more harsh luxury tax and other issues where it will be hard for teams to $90 million a season.

The deal also raises the salary floor for smaller market and lower spending teams – such as the Spurs, Thunder, Pistons, Clippers, Jazz, and Kings – as those teams must spend up to 85 percent of the salary cap the first two years and 90 percent after that, basically forcing the competitive balance that the league once had.

In the next few days, more details will begin to trickle out, but according to Pro Basketball Talk, the preliminary verdict is the owner’s got the better end of the deal. All NBA fans and players wanted was the season to get underway.

“I speak for everyone when we say, ‘If we work, we’re excited,” Lakers forward Matt Barnes said. “I thought we’d eventually come to something. I thought we’d get started in January or February.”