NBA Lockout: Could Santa Please Leave Lakers-Bulls Under Our Christmas Tree?

The NBA's players and owners have finally reached a tentative agreement to start the regular season on Christmas Day, and for legions of disgruntled fans, I couldn't think of a better gift on that day.

Christmas Day is unofficially the tip-off for the NBA's national TV schedule, and the holiday is usually reserved for some of the league's juiciest match-ups and 2011 is no exception.

Games involving Miami, Dallas, Chicago and the Los Angeles Lakers were all on the slate for Christmas 2011, but from a Lakers fan's perspective, the proposed Bulls-Lakers game was certainly the most intriguing.

Storylines abound. Chicago and Los Angeles offer two of the league's truly elite players in Derrick Rose and Kobe Bryant respectively, and the two teams boast the NBA's most dominant frontlines as well.

Lakers center Andrew Bynum and forward Pau Gasol may get more recognition, but the Bulls' post duo of Joakim Noah and Carlos Boozer was just as impressive last season.

Bynum and Gasol averaged 25.7 points per game and 19.6 rebounds during the 2010-11 regular season, while Noah and Boozer averaged a combined 21.3 points and 19.9 rebounds of their own.

As a team, the Bulls averaged 44.2 rebounds per game while only allowing their opponents to score 91.3 points per game, and the Lakers averaged 44.0 rebounds per game while allowing their opponents to score an average of 95.4 points.

Those numbers were good enough to make the Lakers and Bulls two of the best defensive and rebounding teams in the NBA, and when you add in the fact that Chicago coach Tom Thibodeau would be the coach with more tenure in a matchup, things really get interesting.

For Lakers fans, the Christmas Day matchup with Chicago would be the first regular season glimpse of new head coach Mike Brown, and a high-profile game with the Bulls would not only provide an immediate test for the Lakers, but it would also give us an idea of how the Lakers will function outside the triangle offense.

The Lakers have serious issues concerning the point guard position, and the Bulls have questions of their own at shooting guard, but for both teams the other backcourt positions are as solid as they come.

Rose and Bryant bring the star power to a Christmas Day Lakers-Bulls matchup, and I get goosebumps in anticipation of the two superstars squaring off in the very first game of a shortened NBA regular season.

But this will only happen if the players and owners realize how important starting the NBA season by Christmas Day really is.

Christmas for NBA fans is very similar to what Thanksgiving is to NFL fans, and after months of bickering and back-and-forth fighting, fans deserve the brief respite that would arrive with the beginning of the NBA season.

So please, owners and players if you are listening, try your best to resolve this stupid conflict in time for Christmas, and if you can't maybe a certain guy who currently resides at the North Pole could find the time to leave a few games under our Christmas tree.