Just when they finally have real reason to await the coming season, long-suffering Timberwolves fans find themselves locked out by an NBA labor dispute along with the millionaire players they cheer.

Newcomers Rick Adelman, Ricky Rubio and Derrick Williams won't arrive until owners and players decide how to divide $4 billion in revenue with an agreement Commissioner David Stern contends must benefit small-market owners from Minnesota to Milwaukee and beyond.

Contentious negotiations already have wiped away the regular season's opening two weeks, and team owners threaten an entire season will be lost if they can't fix a system in which they claim 22 of 30 teams lost a combined $300 million last season.

Those negotiations have introduced such mind-numbing concepts as "basketball-related income" and "midlevel contract exception" that no basketball lover ever wanted to know, but included in the chatter also is a concern Wolves fans know well.

Both sides simply call it "competitive balance."

It's the disparity between have and have-not franchises that last season saw the Los Angeles Lakers spend $110 million to pay their players compared to the Sacramento Kings' $45 million, and that within mere months saw superstars LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony and Deron Williams all leave franchises in Cleveland, Denver and Salt Lake City for bigger (or warmer) markets in Miami and New York City either by trade or free-agent signing.

"It shouldn't be that if you're in New York, Brooklyn or L.A.," Stern told NBA TV, referring to the New Jersey Nets' future home, "you can have the ability to have whatever you want in terms of players because what are we going to tell people in other cities? And what are those teams going to tell their fans?"

Leveling the field

Adam Silver, the NBA deputy commissioner, calls "broken" the previous system that allowed franchises to far exceed the league's salary cap by paying a punitive tax.

The NFL and NHL both have restrictive "hard" salary caps that prevent one franchise from spending more than double what another does paying players.

The NBA's "soft" cap was set last season at $58 million, the luxury-tax threshold set at $70 million. The Lakers, Orlando and eventual league champion Dallas all paid their players around $90 million and then paid as much as $20 million additionally to the league in tax.

The Lakers alone will earn $150 million a season from a new local television contract they signed. The Wolves, by comparison, have only a $10 million deal. No team has won a championship without paying the luxury payroll tax since Miami did so in 2006.

The Lakers, Mavericks and Boston -- big-spending teams with willing owners in big markets -- have won the past four NBA titles.

In contrast, the NFL, with its hard salary cap, nonguaranteed contracts and massive television contract that allows for significant revenue sharing among franchises, has awarded championships to Green Bay, New Orleans, Indianapolis and Pittsburgh since 2006.

"Thirty teams are not in position to compete for championships," Silver told reporters after negotiations broke down last week and Stern announced the cancellation of the season's first two weeks. "It makes no sense for us to operate under the current model."

The NBA Players Association refuses to accept a hard salary cap -- union executive director Billy Hunter calls it a "blood issue" -- so the league has countered with considerably more punitive tax proposals that the players' union in essence deems a form of hard cap.

It is just one in a laundry list of issues that comprise what Stern last week termed the "gulf" that separates the two sides.

Seeking change

They have disagreed on everything from the length of a new agreement itself to length of player contracts, player raises, team luxury-tax penalties and that aforementioned midlevel exception that allows a team over the cap to still sign a free agent.

And, of course, there's the money: Each side is firm, wanting 53 percent of the pie.

All those differences arise from the previous labor agreement that stung owners and has left them adamant for change, so much so that some players have prepared the past two years for the possibility of missing an entire season.

A struggling world economy the past three years hasn't helped any, either.

The owners seek a revised system that will guarantee them a profit. They also seek to level the field among the franchises through contained costs and increased revenue sharing that will help even player payrolls and help ensure small-market teams the ability to keep their best players.

The departure of James, Anthony and Williams was the start of an exodus that, under the rules of the last labor agreement, had All-Stars Chris Paul and Dwight Howard posturing to leave New Orleans and Orlando respectively in 2012.

Oklahoma City, it should be noted, found a way to sign willing young superstar Kevin Durant to a long-term contract extension.

"You could see the NBA saying, 'We've got to stop this thing,"' Hall of Famer and TNT broadcast analyst Charles Barkley told NBA TV. "The owners finally said, 'Hey, listen, if all these guys want to play in major cities, what can we do to stop it?' And they're going to stop it, one way or the other. I can promise you that.

"We can't just have all our stars playing in major markets. If we don't have stars in small markets, those teams are not going to survive, and these owners have drawn a line in the sand. You can see."

Missed games, missed paychecks

Wolves fans hope any new system will help ensure the team can re-sign star forward Kevin Love to a contract extension that also won't prevent the Wolves from re-signing their other young players.

Until that new labor agreement finally comes, Love and teammate Anthony Tolliver have discussed holding a camp for the team's locked-out players in Los Angeles next month while they watch and wait for a resolution.

Stern last week suggested games through Christmas could be canceled if a deal isn't struck this coming week. Players will begin missing paychecks in mid-November.

"We were expecting to miss games," said Tolliver, the team's union player representative. "The owners always have been out for blood. I didn't see it changing just because we got to the point where we missed games. I only thought the way we'd get a deal was if we gave up a whole lot. We'll see very soon. If there's going to be a deal done, it'll be the next three, four weeks.

"Once we get past that point, it'll get real grim."