It is over so soon?

Yes, the NBA lockout appears to be over after a late, late night -- or early, early morning -- agreement in New York City between owners and players.

At this late hour, I'll simply cut-and-paste here the story I wrote for the web site so early Saturday morning risers will know what happened overnight....

After 149 days and many very late nights, NBA owners and players finally agreed early Saturday morning – fittingly after a 16-hour meeting that finished as dawn approached -- to a new labor deal that will have the Timberwolves back playing games at Target Center right after Christmas.

That means Wolves fans, after a season already delayed by two months, soon could finally see rookies Ricky Rubio and Derrick Williams as well as new coach Rick Adelman make their debuts with a team expected to look dramatically different than the one that won just 17 games last season.

Both the league’s 450 players and 30 team owners still must approve a resolution that neither side, particularly the players, resoundingly like.

Before they do, the players will have to reform their union, which they dissolved last week in what NBA commissioner David Stern dismissed simply as a “negotiating tactic.”

Guess he was right.

If both owners and players each approve the deal, it finally will end the second-longest work stoppage in league history -- a lockout of the players by owners in a dispute over billions of dollars and plenty of principles that began when the previous labor agreement expired on July 1.

It also will save a condensed 66-game season that is expected to begin with the league’s lucrative, nationally-televised games on Christmas day that originally was scheduled to feature Boston at New York, Chicago at the Los Angeles Lakers and in a rematch of last season’s NBA Finals, Miami at Dallas.

Free agency and training camps are expected to begin simultaneously on Dec. 9.

The two sides reached the handshake agreement at 3 a.m. New York City. Stern and NBA Players Association executive director Billy Hunter appeared at a joint news conference about 40 minutes later.

“The greater good required us to knock ourselves out and come to this understanding,” a weary-looking Stern said. “We’ve got fans. We’ve got players who would like to play. We’ve got others who are dependent on us and it’s always been our goal to reach a deal that is fair to both sides.”

At least one Timberwolf sounds prepared to start the season, and his NBA career.

“Minnesota,” Williams tweeted at 2:37 a.m. Minneapolis time, “I know y’all ready!!!”

Not long after that, star forward Kevin Love tweeted, “Is this for real?” and guard Wayne Ellington tweeted, “I really hope this is real and a FAIR deal is ready to be made!”

It sure appears to be real.

Saturday’s early-morning resolution came only after months of negotiations broke off two weeks ago and the NBA players association took the issue from Manhattan hotel ballrooms into federal court.

They dissolved their union in a legal maneuver and filed two antitrust lawsuits against the owners, including one in Minnesota U.S. District that -- like the NFL’s battle with its players last spring and summer – threatened to make Minneapolis the only place for any court action this winter.

That changed, of course, when the two sides finally came together this week for good, first with some back-channel negotiations earlier in the week that set the Thanksgiving weekend table for Friday’s 16-hour session that finally produced the handshake deal.

After all that haggling, the players finally accepted a split in basketball-related revenues between 49 and 51 percent depending on the league’s fortunes. The owners, in turn, acquiesced at least a little and softened their stance on “system” issues that they sought to help even a playing field among teams that last season saw the Lakers spend $110 on player payroll and the Sacramento Kings just $45 million.

ESPN reported the players will receive “slightly more” than 50 percent, but not as much as 51 percent.

Players received 57 percent of revenues in the previous labor agreement that began in 2005 and ended last summer.

Their acceptance of that nearly seven-percent reduction is expected to cost players – and save the NBA’s 30 teams – about $3 billion over the deal’s 10 years. It also means for them shorter contracts, smaller raises and less free-agency options.

The two sides met 24 times for more than 160 combined hours and finally struck a deal that apparently satisfies NBA owners’ two biggest demands:

· * It’ll put as much as $1 billion more in their pockets over the life of an expected 10-year deal after the NBA claimed 22 of 30 teams lost a combined $300 million last season.

· * It will help even that playing field with a more punitive luxury tax that will prevent the richest teams from spending at will for free agents and conceivably will prevent a parade of superstars – LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Deron Williams, Chris Paul, Dwight Howard – from dictating where they will play.

“It will largely prevent high-spending teams from competing in the free-agency market the way they have been able to in the past,” NBA deputy commissioner Adam Silver said. “It’s a compromise. It’s not the system we sought out to get. We hope it’s effective. You can never be certain how a new system will work, but we feel it ultimately will give fans in every community hope that their team can compete for a championship and that their basis for believing will be a function of management rather than how deep the owner’s pockets are or how large the market is.”

Whether the new deal will allow the Wolves to sign Love to a contract extension and keep together its core of young players that also includes Rubio, Williams, Michael Beasley, Anthony Randolph and Wes Johnson remains to be determined.

But for now, the Wolves have plenty to do.

Stern had set a 30-day interim to get the league back up and running again. After a ratification process that could take as long as a week, the Wolves then must:

· * Finalize their roster during what will be a brief, hectic free-agency period in which they’ll sign Williams and second-round pick Malcolm Lee to rookie contracts and investigate whether they can swing a significant trade with a team looking to avoid a more punitive luxury-tax system.

· * Finalize Adelman’s coaching staff by officially signing assistant coaches Terry Porter, Jack Sikma, T.R. Dunn, Bill Bayno, Adelman’s son David and by adding son R.J. to a player-personnel position in the front office.

· * Integrate all the new faces in a hurried two-week training camp that probably will include at least two preseason games before the season opener.

All of it likely means the Wolves probably will play their first game on Dec. 26.

"We want to play basketball,” said San Antonio Spurs owner Peter Holt, chairman of the NBA’s labor relations committee. “Let's go play basketball."