This past Saturday morning, when my little brother woke me up from my slumber to chirp out the good news regarding the handshake deal on a new Collective Bargaining Agreement that will salvage the 2011-2012 NBA season, I felt like a little kid waking up on Christmas Day. But unlike Christmas, this announcement was a bombshell that few people thought possible, let alone predicted.

The signs of a prolonged, devastating labor struggle were evident as far back as the All-Star weekend this past season, when David Stern infamously warned the players that he “knew where all the bodies were buried in the league, because [he] had buried some of them.” From that point on, we knew the owners were going for the jugular, and not necessarily for the most mutually beneficial CBA.  

At stake, according to the owners, was the financial sustenance of the league itself—a league which currently sees a majority of its teams operating at a loss each year (with the caveat, as pointed out by people such as Malcolm Gladwell, that this might not have been such a bad thing for owners like Paul Allen and the Maloofs).

At stake, according to the players, was the competitive balance and integrity of the game itself—a game which was thriving sans a hard salary cap and with options such as the Larry Bird and midlevel exemption to allow teams to sign players despite spending over a certain cap limit (even though this system allowed teams to underpay players like Dwayne Wade while grossly overpaying players such as Rashard Lewis).

At stake for both sides was the preservation of a fan base in the midst of a crucial transition—during a period of constant decline in stadium attendance, the 2010-2011 season galvanized basketball fans rooting for or against Miami’s “Big Three” while enjoying the highlight performances put on by the next generation of talent like Kevin Durant, Blake Griffin, and Derek Rose. With the first month of the regular season cancelled, these fans were already threatening to abandon professional basketball to become jaded college basketball enthusiasts.

At the end of the day, a big number that analysts have thrown around and will continue to throw around is 3 Billion—the amount of league revenue that will eventually be added to the owners’ coffers thanks to the shift of the split; a split that was previously 57-43 in favor of the players has now become 51-49 in their favor.

But I’m sure if someone were to ask the ultra-competitive owner Michael Jordan about his thoughts surrounding the settlement, he would imply that the players emerged victorious. After threatening to offer a deal with the equivalent of a 53-47 split in favor of the owners if negotiations dragged on into the middle of November, the owners were forced to backtrack on that lofty claim and settle for less than a 50-50 deal. Meanwhile, the rookie wage scale, the minimum wage, the midlevel exception, and the extend-and-trade rule (likely to be dubbed the “Carmelo Anthony rule”) all remain intact despite vehement resistance from the owners as far back as June on these issues.

None of that really matters though, and perhaps that’s why Stern and Player’s Union President Billy Hunter came to their senses this past weekend. The only thing that really mattered to the longevity of the NBA was having a solid fan base, and had the 2011-2012 evaporated due to a negotiation stalemate, the fans would have evaporated with them. But an agreement has been reached in time to save over half the season, preventing calamity. In fact, opening the season with an action-packed triple header on Christmas Day (topped off by the NBA Finals rematch that would see Dirk Nowitzki and his boys getting their championship rings in front of Lebron and company) might prove to be a promotional spark that once again increases television ratings for a second season.

Sure, Thanksgiving has passed and anyone remotely interested in the NBA has fast-forwarded their calendars to Christmas. But let’s be thankful for the fact that we no longer have to watch our favorite basketball players run around back-and-forth in meaningless exhibition games where they refuse to play an iota of defense. Let’s be thankful for the fact that we won’t have to watch Turkish basketball in the morning to see the best basketball played on the professional level. Let’s be thankful that we’re not Wilson Chandler, Kenyon Martin, and J.R. Smith, who are now likely stuck in the hostile land known as China until March, while the rest of us bask in real basketball glory stateside. But most importantly, let’s be thankful that for at least the next six years, we can look forward to the NBA flowing uninterrupted, generating the drama and entertainment that only the cream of the professional basketball crop (and the fine commentators on TNT) can provide.