Jelisa Castrodale

It ended with a handshake. After 149 days, 25 bargaining sessions and countless “no deal” tweets dispatched from countless hotel lobbies, the NBA lockout essentially ended early Saturday morning with a handshake deal between David Stern and Billy Hunter.

If their agreement is approved, training camps will open Dec. 9, and a shortened 66-game season will start with a triple-header on Christmas Day.

I can’t say I’ve processed that announcement yet. I’d already braced myself for a winter without the NBA. I’d reintroduced myself to both college basketball and dinner conversations that didn’t just involve me shouting at TNT’s announcers through a mouthful of microwaveable entrée. I’m tentatively excited but hope that, by Christmas, I’ll be ready to start ignoring whoever’s across the kitchen table from me again.

The NBA lockout Patrick Mcdermott / Getty Images Blowout PBT: The owners say they didn't get everything they wanted, but that's polite talk. They totally worked the players. PBT: Big-spending teams safe for two years CSN: Rose returns to roots to prep for season PBT: Owners made concessions to cement deal PBT: What will make handshake deal official? PBT: Draft age limit among unresolved issues PBT: Owners better hope animosity worth it PBT: Why a deal now? The calendar, mostly PBT: Team needs  |  Top 10 free agents

There are 26 days between today and tip-off, so let’s think of 26 things we can look forward to, starting with:

1. Knicks-Celtics. Heat-Mavericks. Bulls-Lakers. The season begins with three marquee matchups, and that means you can spend Christmas afternoon sequestered in the living room, writing a sincere thank-you note to the aunt who gave you two pairs of pajama jeans.

2. Kris Humphries can be listed as an “NBA player” instead of an “out-of-work NBA player” in tabloid cover stories about his divorce from Kim Kardashian. Humphries’ time as Mr. Kardashian lasted 72 days, or roughly half of the lockout. Donald Sterling has a longer relationship with some of his kidney stones.

3. For the first time since, say, 2005, we can hear the phrase “Yao Ming on ice” without scrolling through the injury report. Ming, who retired following another stress fracture-filled season, has launched his own Napa Valley wine label.

4. Being able to raise a glass of Yao Ming Napa Valley Cabernet and say “This wine has a strong finish. UNLIKE LEBRON JAMES.” And everyone will laugh and laugh because LeBron jokes make sense again and you’re all drunk.

5. The Spurs are coming off a 61-win season — best in the West and second only to the Bulls — and Tim Duncan, Tony Parker and Richard Jefferson could have enough in their collective tanks to make another title run. I love that even if Duncan wins a fifth championship, he’ll still have the kind of blank facial expression that most of us don’t make unless we’re watching Whitney.

6. SportsCenter’s nightly top 10 plays will become “Blake Griffin, Blake Griffin, Blake Griffin, and a Couple of Other Things You’ll Forget About Because BLAKE GRIFFIN”. Sorry, NHL highlights. At least we were together longer than Kris and Kim.

7. Will rookie Kemba Walker and new 'Cat Corey Maggette be enough to make Charlotte fans forget that Michael Jordan let Stephen Jackson, Gerald Wallace and Tyson Chandler get away? That’s a trick question. There aren’t any Charlotte fans.

8. Michael Jordan remains the only NBA owner to be prominently featured in an underwear commercial. (Note to Mark Cuban: THIS IS NOT A CHALLENGE.)

9. “If you love basketball, you’ll love Groupon”, flashes the sidebar ad on WashingtonWizards.com. Actually, if you love basketball, this could be the season you make out with the Wizards themselves (Note to the Kardashians: THIS IS NOT A CHALLENGE). Rookie of the Year runner up John Wall and Rashard Lewis will ... wait, why are you laughing? There’s no way this team drops 59 games this season.

10. We'll find out if, after an 11-game college career, Cleveland’s No. 1 overall draft pick Kyrie Irving will live up to the hype and the headlines.

11. Cavaliers fans already have started to doodle “Mr. & Mrs. Kyrie Irving” on their Trapper Keepers and have pre-ordered a family pack of Irving replica jerseys while loudly insisting that they can finally listen to “Look Away” without thinking about ... Le ... you know.

12. They’re lying (and you’re not helping, Cleveland Browns).

13. Seeing the Artist Formerly Known as Ron Artest wearing the name “Peace” stitched across his shoulder blades.

Jim Rogash / Getty Images The Week in Sports Pictures The nation grieved for those hurt, killed and affected by the Boston Marathon bombings. After one of the suspects was caught on Friday — following a day-long lockdown and manhunt — sports returned to Boston over the weekend.

14. Kobe Bryant is coming into the season healthy and fresh from some kind of bionic knee procedure. In my head, he’s been quietly transformed into a man-bat-ungulate mammal hybrid, like the agile, terrifying DNA experiment from that Adrian Brody sci-fi flick.

15. I never have to spend another evenings watching an Adrian Brody sci-fi flick.

16. We’ll find out whether the aging Celtics will be helped or hurt by the truncated season. On one veiny and wrinkled hand, they don’t have to slog through a full 82-game schedule. On the other, the compressed calendar means that they’ll be playing back-to-back games, which can’t be good for Pierce and Garnett and Allen and their back-back-backs.

17. The Dallas Mavericks will host their first-ever ring ... or whatever ceremony before their Christmas afternoon game against Miami. Shortly after the Finals, Mark Cuban said that “Rings are old school” and hinted that he would be handing out something else. On Saturday, he made the tongue-in-Tweet comment that he’d be giving “solid gold commemorative mouse pads”. I secretly hope they’ll each be getting a lifesize dinosaur garden sculpture from SkyMall.

18. At least LeBron will get to be part of a ring ceremony. ZING! BAM! EVERYONE DRINK YOUR YAO MING DRINK IT DRINK IT NOW!