David Stern gave the players an ultimatum Saturday: Take this deal or get ready for a worse offer.
And the players don't have much left to hit back with though. Stern's got the PR battle won. The proposal he laid out in great detail sounds fair enough to fans so if -- or when -- the players reject it, all the blame is on them.
So with the frustration built from what the players perceive as another weak offer, the decertification train jumped back on the tracks and appears to be running full steam ahead. Jared Dudley retweeted a reporter that tweeted "Hello decertification." Jeff Green tweeted "I CAN'T F'ING BELIEVE THIS!!!" Nazr Mohammed went on another one of his asture, well-thought out Twitter rants.
But Deron Williams came high and hard.
(I think the question mark was supposed to an exclamation point. Just a hunch.)
But Williams sentiment is one many players are feeling. This decertification push is something a lot of players, or at least agents, wanted over the summer. But going hard for it now is akin to trying to stop your house from burning down with your garden hose. It still has merit and it's certainly a tactic, but I don't think Stern and his owners are shaking over it.
The players have until Wednesday to either change their mind or to really dig in. And if they're going to dig in, they might as well get completely crazy and just try to, as one player texted a reporter, blow it to the moon.
