The NBA owners and the union have seemed to put aside the lawsuits and the cold shoulders they’ve been giving each other, at least temporarily. This week both sides sat down and seem to be really trying to get a collective bargaining agreement hammered out. And, after a hopeful tweet on Twitter yesterday and some talk in the league, it looks like there just might be a season this year after all.

Yesterday the two sides sat down for nearly six hours trying to work something out. They then extended the meeting to today, where they’ll meet again. And, if that doesn’t work, they’ve also said that they’re prepared to meet again on Friday. Bigwig execs sitting down for three days in a row might not seem like a big deal; but when you consider that the two sides only met twice in the first two months of the lockout, it’s a very big deal indeed.

Things look good, and there may even be some games to go to this year, if negotiations continue to look so promising. But even though they’re meeting extensively, everyone in the negotiation room is keeping mum so far. Commissioner of the league, David Stern, said that “We know we have a real problem to solve and there’s nothing personal about these negotiations, it’s going to be about problem solving,” Stern said. “If we can, we can. If we can’t, we can’t, but we’ve agreed not to talk about it.”

But not everyone seemed to be in on even that agreement. Just minutes after the meeting, Roger Mason Jr., who’s a member of the player’s executive committee, tweeted “Looking like a season.” The tweet was only up for a little while before it was deleted and Mason released another tweet saying that his account had been hijacked.

And although there’s no real word yet, the fact that the two sides are so adamant about getting a deal worked out, and are both being so cooperative to make that happen, does bring real hope to the 2011-2012 basketball season.