"It's not the greatest offer in the world."

NBA Players Association Executive Director Billy Hunter made that declaration late last night after the owners made what they characterized as their last-best proposal.

The honest truth is that it doesn't matter if Hunter thinks it is a spectacular offer or not. The time to get back to work is now, lest the NBA continue to swirl southward in a sea of nationwide apathy.

Of course, there are NBA fans – even rabid ones – in every city in the country. There just aren't that many of them outside of Miami, Dallas, Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York.

But, to be sure, over the past two seasons at the Bradley Center Andrew Bogut's "Squad Six" has pounded their drum, heckled the opposing team, dressed in Bucks colors, stood for all 48 minutes, and generally created some much needed mayhem during times when the rest of the building resembled a morgue.

Two seasons ago, during the "Fear the Deer" playoff run, the Bucks were the hottest ticket in town. Last year, as the injuries piled up, there was, shall we say, plenty of room to stretch out if you happened to stumble across tickets.

What this shows is that most fans, while not happy with the lockout, won't have their lives affected by having to spend their disposable income elsewhere. Perhaps an extra movie; maybe an evening out at one of Milwaukee's great restaurants; maybe just tuck some cash away for a rainy day.

If you still need basketball, Marquette opens its season tonight at the Bradley Center and will play 16 home games this season. Other options for your sports fix absent of NBA basketball include UWM, the Admirals, the Wave, and of course, that football team that has had some recent success a couple hours north of town.

The notion that the only real loser in any sports lockout is the fans is rubbish. Without one particular team playing at any given time, we'll figure it out.

To be sure, collateral damage will be felt by the bars and restaurants around NBA venues, but that is a temporary setback. Arena workers who count on that income certainly are affected. Some may have to find a different seasonal job for a time, but most will at least survive the lockout just fine.

The owners of the franchises have dug their heels in for a reason. They are the ones that have been losing money hand over fist because the salary structure has outpaced ticket revenues dramatically. They have also dug their heels in because unlike in the NFL, the NBA overall would probably be better off financially if the season were to just be cancelled, lest they be forced to continue using the previous collective bargaining agreement.

So who really loses? The owners are wealthy beyond comprehension. They'll still be wealthy beyond comprehension even if a few hundred million bucks are lost because no one is coming to see their team play temporarily. After all, they have demonstrated that they know how to manage their fortune just by virtue of having a team in the first place.

So if the fans are okay, and the owners are all right, and the arena workers are for the most part at least surviving, who else does that leave?

Oh yeah...the actual product itself.

At first glance you might ask how the players could possibly be in trouble. After all, the average annual salary in the NBA is roughly $5.15 million. The answer to the question can be summed up by the response from the players themselves the last time there was a work stoppage.

In 1998 the average NBA salary was about $3 million. Still an eye popping figure for mere mortals, but a figure that was getting out of hand for the 430 or so NBA players that were drawing on that collective $1.3 billion.

The players were principled in their belief that since they were the product, they were entitled to at the very least keep the status quo. After their first check was missed on Nov. 16, however, they went into widespread panic mode.

Unlike most of us, NBA players do not get paid every two weeks, 52 weeks per year. Instead, they are paid twice a month during the season; in the middle of the month and at the end of the month. Its human nature that players would not miss something they wouldn't be getting anyway, thus we have not seen total panic ensue during the current work stoppage just yet.  We are getting very close to that point, however.

For a player making the 1998 average salary of $3 million, when you have gotten used to seeing $250,000 put into your bank account in mid-November and all of a sudden it isn't there, you start to feel some distress. That issue is magnified ten-fold considering how poorly the majority of these guys manage their money. Once a check is missed, the realization sets in that with another two weeks of a stoppage, there would go another $250,000 never to be seen again.

And that was just for the average player back in 1998. In terms of today's dollars, the average check that will be missed next Wednesday will be about $429,000 of money lost forever.

The obvious question then to ask is that if the average salary is indeed $5.15 million, what happened to the all of their other $429,000 paychecks?

Some of the answers border on the absurd.

According to court documents, Gilbert Arenas spends $5,000 per month to feed his sharks, another $1,500 for a shark keeper to take care of them, $5,000 per month on housekeepers, and $675 per car to have them washed. This is all on top of the $1 million he spent to renovate his backyard with a pool and grotto, plus another reported $40,000 shopping spree at FAO Schwartz for his kids.

Milwaukee's own Latrell Sprewell made more than $100 million during his 13-year NBA career. His last contract negotiation ended poorly when he turned down a three-year extension from the Minnesota Timberwolves worth $21 million. According to Sprewell, "I have a family to feed ... [team owner Glen Taylor] better cough up some money. Otherwise, you're going to see these kids in one of those Sally Struthers commercials soon." Since then, Sprewell has seen his vast fortune evaporate, so much so that his yacht, "Milwaukee's Best" was seized by federal marshals after he fell behind in payments and insurance.

Former Buck-for-an-eyeblink Gary Payton once admitted he did not know how many Bentley's he owns. "I've got four of five of them," he once said.

In 1998, Patrick Ewing famously said while acting as President of the Players Association during contract negotiations, "Sure NBA players make a lot of money, but we spend a lot too."

The most abhorrent thing of Ewing's comment wasn't that it was true; it's that he actually expected sympathy for the plight of the player and did not understand the backlash.

Former Boston Celtics guard Kenny Anderson said that to make it during the last lockout that he might have to sell one of his eight (eight!) luxury cars, telling the New York Times, "I don't need all of them. You know, just get rid of the Mercedes." It was fortunate for him that he still had his customized Range Rover, Ferrari, two Lexus', and three Porches' to fall back on.

"It's like they say," Anderson continued. "The more you make, the more you spend. And right now, without my check, I have to start getting tight."

The television show MTV Cribs has only exacerbated the situation. Today's athlete sees someone with a $10 million home with four Rolls Royce's and he then has to go out and buy a $15 million dollar mansion and have six Rolls Royce's. It is a never-ending cycle of irresponsible spending by today's athlete who cannot handle the missed payday.

Don't think the owners don't realize this, either.

Of course, then there is the 500,000 pound gorilla in the room; all of the illegitimate children that players don't think about having to provide for when they are targets of predatory women looking to score a lifelong payday by sleeping with athletes hoping to get pregnant.

Former Buck Jason Caffey fathered at least eight children by seven different women. Shawn Kemp's illegitimate children were fodder for a Sports Illustrated expose on the subject. Calvin Murphy fathered a whopping 14 children by nine different mothers.

It takes a lot of money to feed all of those mouths. When the checks stop coming, that's when the real trouble starts. It also helps explain (but not excuse in any way) why so many multimillion dollar athletes are living paycheck to paycheck.

The fact of the matter is that despite the NBA and the players association preaching to their membership relentlessly about better spending habits, a full 60 percent are flat broke five years after playing their final game.

Again, the real, true loser in all sports labor negotiations aren't the owners, fans, or even stadium workers, it's always the players. They are the ones that cannot meet their $75,000 monthly mortgages, $5,000 shark food bills, and $50,000 child support payments. Further compounding the issue is that most of them don't have another marketable skill; so once again, they are painted into a corner.

Again, don't think the owners don't know this, either.

As commissioner David Stern said last night in presenting the owners proposal, "There comes a time when you have to be through negotiating, and we are."

The proposal that Stern delivered would shift $3 billion over 10 years from the players to the owners and also severely restricts the rules governing team payrolls, player contracts and player movement. It would be a monumental victory for management.

However, considering the economic state that we are all in, Billy Hunter, Derek Fisher and the rest of the union should just accept the deal and get back to work.

To be sure, the players point is understandable: again, they are the product that the owners sell. No one goes to the Staples Center to see Jerry Buss own. No one goes to the Bradley Center to see Herb Kohl watch the game stoically from his aisle seat 10 rows behind the Bucks bench. No one pays thousands of dollars to sit courtside at American Airlines Arena to see what Mickey Arison is wearing. The players are the stars; the players are what drives the bus.

But the owners are allowed to make a profit. If the stars of the NBA truly believed a players-run league could survive and they could keep all of the revenues for themselves, they would just create one. But the fact remains that as much as the owners need the players, the players need the owners right back.

The players don't have to like it. But they probably should learn to just accept it.