In sight: A 72-game season that starts Dec. 15 or...decertification chaos?

So now what?

A 72-game season that starts on Dec. 15 and a deal the players loathe?

Or the threat to dissolve the union and, if followed through, scuttle the season?

David Stern and the NBA made a bold, all-or-nothing move Thursday night when they followed Sunday's scrapped take-it-or-leave-it ultimatum offer and replaced it with another little-changed offer that dangles the prospect of a nearly complete 72-game season.

If the players don't accept by early next week -- after they've had all weekend to chew on it, gulp and swallow -- Stern said that draconian "reset" offer of a 47-percent revenue split, hard salary cap, rolled back salaries will be on the table.

So to answer the question what now?...

Expect to hear as early as Friday that more than 200 players, in a campaign led by the game's most influential agents, have signed a decertification petition, a move that would open a 45-day window for the union to dissolve their membership and throw the whole mess into the courts.

And it could very well mean that they move to vote on decertification and still vote early next week to accept this latest offer.

But...

After two more long days -- and nights -- of negotiations, the NBA didn't give the players what they sought: Givebacks in "system" issues that would allow more free-agency movement in return for the players' capitulating to meet the owners' demand for a 50-50 revenue split.

"It's not the greatest proposal in the world," NBA Players Association executive director Billy Hunter said. "But I have an obligation to at least present it to our membership and so that's what we're going to do. We need to sit down and discuss it with all our reps and then collectively decide what it is we're going to do."

But with the clock ticking on a season that already has lost 10 days of games why wait until next week for team player reps to meet?

"We don't expect them to like every aspect of our revised proposal," Stern said. "I would say there are many teams that don't like every aspect of our revised proposal."

Asked if this is the league's last, best offer -- hey, wasn't last Sunday's offer their last, best one? -- Stern said, "You know, we took pains out of respect to the efforts of everybody not to characterize it precisely that way. But if this offer is not accepted, then we will revert to our 47-percent proposal."

Stern says the clock is stopped on that reset offer until the union has a chance to meet with its player reps and either approve or reject it.

"It doesn't make any sense to keep going here," Stern said. "We've made our revised proposal and we're not planning to make another one...There is nothing left to negotiate about."

And so, once again, the NBA told the players to take it or leave it with an offer made both to reduce player salaries by more than $3 billion over the proposed deal's 10 years and significantly limits the ability of luxury tax-paying teams to spend at will.

"We believe we will be proven right over time that this model, if the players agree to it, will create a better league, create one where fans in more markets will be able to hope that their team can compete for championships. A system that fans believe a well-managed team regardless of market size, regardless of how deep an owner's pockets are, will be in a position to compete for a championship and more players will be in a position to compete for rings as well.

"So we think this kind of system will create a better league over time and I recognize from players' standpoint they do not see these changes in their self interest."

You could see that disappointment and fatigue on the faces of Hunter, union president Derek Fisher and the union's executive committee at their post-negotiating session news conference.

Now the question is: Will the players react to this latest offer with anger and indignation or with a grudging realization that it might be the best they're going to get?

"We've been at it a long while, man," Hunter said of a two-plus year negotiating process. "It's been a long haul and we're coming near the end of it. We're trying to get this done."

Me?

I'll bet on chaos.