Even the casual sports fan is likely aware that both the NBA and the NFL are in danger of having next season canceled or delayed while the leagues and players unions work out new collective bargaining agreements. These things surface every four to five years and seldom result in a stoppage of work, although the NBA had a lockout in the mid-'90s, and the NFL resorted to using replacement players for a while back in the '80s. The NHL once lost an entire season behind such a disagreement.

At the core of most of these labor disputes is the league's feeling that it is paying players too much, and the players thinking they deserve more. Posturing on both sides usually gives in to a compromise in which the owners (because they pay the salaries) typically come out winners. The NBA's much-dissected salary negotiations during the '90s lockout were a prime example of players (for example, Patrick Ewing) getting reamed because they didn't understand the ins and outs of labor agreements and desperately needed to make car, rent or child support payments and eventually caved in.

The NBA, knowing that players have these same concerns in this faltering economy, is poised to take a very drastic step in the next round of labor negotiations, which could have ripple effects for all your favorite star players. It also presents a dilemma that we can all relate to, millionaires or not. Namely, would you take a pay cut to keep your job in this economy, or just look for another one? Sportingnews.com reports:

NBA Deputy Commissioner Adam Silver confirmed that the league wants to roll back players' existing salaries as part of the next collective bargaining agreement, CBSSports.com reported.

"It's part of our proposal," Silver said. "It included a reduction of existing contracts in addition to a reduction of the maximums going forward."

The league proposed in January that if the players accepted a new deal in time for this season, the pay cuts would have been less drastic and some existing deals may have been grandfathered, sources told the Website. The league was insisting a new CBA be reached before this past summer's free-agency signing period began on July 1. The players' union rejected that offer, which, sources say, is no longer on the table.

The NHL took a similar hard-line approach to cutting player salaries, resulting in the cancellation of the 2004-05 hockey season.

This is obviously bad news to hoops junkies like me, because it could mean the loss of next season if the players don't cave in. For high-salaried "superteams" like the Celtics, Heat and Lakers, this could require trading and cutting star players to get underneath a proposed "hard" salary cap. Enjoy LeBron while you can, South Florida.

NBA players currently receive 57 percent of the league's basketball-related income, which makes for some mighty rich players. Mediocre guys at the end of the bench can easily make $5 million a year, even though they seldom play. The league now wants to shift the sharing model to give the players around 45 percent of all revenue. That's a pretty big shift. The owners say this is necessary to keep the league afloat in the current economy. Naturally, I think this is total BS.

The obvious hypocrisy here is that the NBA owners have nobody to blame but themselves for giving marginal players (like Washington's Gilbert Arenas) massive guaranteed contracts ($111 million over six years in Arenas' case). It's hard to compute that the same guys spending like drunken sailors every summer are now crying broke, but, again, that's the advantage you've got when you're the one cutting the checks. You can dictate the terms of employment, even for a guaranteed contract. After all, where else is Shaq gonna make $13 million a year? Sizzler? I think not.

For everyday working stiffs like you and me, this raises an interesting dilemma.

Questions:
-If you were faced with taking a sizable mandatory pay cut to keep your present job or forced to look for a new one (presumably for your full salary) in this economy, what would you do?
-Will the NBA succeed in pulling this stunt on the players, or are guys like Kobe and LeBron too savvy to get taken like that?