No less an authority than the New York Times reporting that our long national nightmare is over. I think it's safe to let out a collective and much-needed "whew," considering the news.

Oh, you didn't hear?

The NBA and its referees are close to coming to an agreement that would allow them to call NBA games this season and for several years following.

Don't give a rip? Hate the zebras? Constantly upset at their bias? The star-driven calls? Hoping they'd just dump the whole lot of them and start over?

You fool. You absolute fool, who doesn't appear to watch many NBA games with a discerning eye.

Nobody seems to get the fact that, in spite of what that ref with the hair and the whistle and the whole thing just called, that these are the best in the world at a job that is pretty damned impossible. And that inviting a new series of crews into the league for only a moment's token notice would have just been a ridiculous and legitimacy-scarring operation.

It doesn't matter what you think, I've little patience for it. You might not care for the work of the typical NBA referee, but the typical NBA referee is fantastic at his or her job, and no amount of frozen-envelope YouTube clips can chase that away.

And the NBA is just unyieldingly lucky they didn't chase them away during this latest round of "negotiations."

The contrarian in all of you just needs to can it. There was no upside to chasing these refs away. And despite what you think of yourself as a basketball follower, this game wasn't getting any better with these refs on the sideline.

I guarantee you I am more upset and frustrated with their work than the most ardent of referee-bashers -- without the added, lazy, benefit of conspiracy theories, twaddle about the star system (you do realize these stars are faster, better and stronger than other players, right? This leads to them getting fouled more by inferior defenders), or outright homerism.

The block/charge call? It's pathetic. The modern NBA ref has decided that any time a player falls down, a call must result. Doesn't matter if a player falls down by choice, there has to be a call. A block or a charge. Even if there isn't a block or a charge. And these incessant calls? They're ruining the modern game.

The NBA also tried to enforce hand-checking years ago to no avail. Then tried to re-emphasize it. No dice. A few years later, same thing. Finally, 2004-05 rolled around, and they tried it again. Finally, the refs listened. But not after turning off an entire generation of NBA fans who had sat through and passed on watching the hand-check-heavy decade.

Beyond that? Appreciate these guys. Appreciate the job they have to do in what is almost exclusively an opinion-based business, with calls made in a split-second. Over and over and over again.

Appreciate these refs because what they do is a special skill. Most of the time it's not something that can be taught.

And we nearly lost them, for however long.

Kindly appreciate that they'll be back. You know I will.

Now, commence with the idiotic, "the refs be bums" twaddle.