<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Jerry Stackhouse cut to the meat of the matter after the new six-year collective-bargaining agreement between NBA players and the league was announced Tuesday. In a sport that is all about wins and losses, the high-stakes labor game was more about image and doing the right thing. "Both sides had to bend," said the Mavericks' sixth man while relaxing in the Cape Fear River area of North Carolina. "All anybody wanted was a fair deal. At this point, with a great NBA Finals going on, it wasn't about who won or who lost. "Our league won." Players, owners, coaches, front-office personnel and fans could collectively raise their hands in victory after the announcement of the agreement in principal. "We had too many good things at stake to mess it up with a lockout," Stackhouse said. "There's a few changes for the players and the owners, but the main thing is that we're going to have uninterrupted basketball. All labor problems would have done is hurt the game." The Mavericks were concerned that a lockout would put a crimp in their summer plans for players such as Devin Harris and Marquis Daniels. They can move forward with summer-league teams that will be sent to Las Vegas, Long Beach, Calif., and Salt Lake City, with Avery Johnson overseeing all three and coaching the Vegas team. "It's really important that this thing got done," Johnson said. "A lot of the guys that we need to get work ? particularly Devin ? really need to go through the summer league. "I'm excited that cooler heads prevailed. There's enough money to go around for everybody. We didn't want to go down the road that hockey went down. If you lose a year and then come back later with a deal that isn't as good, nobody wins." The Mavericks expect Harris, Daniels, Pavel Podkolzin and D.J. Mbenga to participate in the summer league. </div> Source
