This upcoming season will be one for the ages with one of the best draft classes to come into the league full of promising young stars and the opportunity to see how well teams fare with the movement that took place in free agency.

Thanks to the new tv deal which kicked in last season, we are also witnessing historical transactions in free agency including players now making north of $200 million in salary.  It was all part of the stipulations that provided a supermax clause which was created in hopes of helping teams retain their star players.

The NBA and the NBPA came to a swift agreement before this upcoming season would be in danger of happening at all due to a lockout.

During the last negotiations, there was a long drawn out back and forth battle throughout the summer for concessions between the owners and players which ended in Nov 2011.

Not only were infightings happening within the players association's leadership, but the players ended the negotiations conceding a larger percentage of their salary cap ceiling that reduced the amount of money the players could take from the overall basketball related income.

This time around there was new leadership in place that was primarily interested in making a deal work with no lockout. The league and players came to the place where they could quickly complete a new contract and there would be no stoppages as it were before.

That didn't mean the players weren't more prepared this time around for another lockout in case they couldn't come to a quick enough agreement with the league.

According to Phoenix Suns forward Jared Dudley, the NBPA was prepared for a lockout and ready to buy insurance to pay players up to $300,000 while holding out for a deal.

RECOMMENDED (Article Continues Below)
Kevin Durant of the Suns spoke out about the team's mission going forward.

Nick Meyer ·

Grayson Allen shared a key news update.

Nick Meyer ·

Timberwolves Suns Game 3 Prediction

RB Hayek ·

Needless to say this never happened, and the fans benefit. Players who spend absorbent amounts of money would have had to live on a budget, especially those players who were free agents.