Replacing The NBA

NBA commissioner David Stern has offered an ultimatum, and the players' union has rejected it. This puts the next NBA season at a serious risk of not happening. I don't know how NBA contracts work. But I'm wondering if it would be possible for the players to organize themselves into teams outside the formal NBA organization and make money by playing games.

You could keep all the teams together in their last NBA incarnation and fill out rosters with whoever the existing players on the teams were willing to add. I'm sure that without the formal apparatus of the NBA, they'd earn a lot less money -- the installed base of arenas and basketball-promoting resources has formidable value. But I'm guessing they could make enough money playing in smaller arenas to be worth their while. And I imagine that before long, the new NBA union-cooperative teams would attract more allegiance than the empty brand names they replaced. The guys who can do the insane athletic feats have the real value.