As Dirk Nowitzki and Dwyane Wade traded big shots in a thrilling National Basketball Association finals, with fans tuning in at levels the league hadn't seen since the days of the Kobe-Shaq Lakers, the questions came more frequently.

The answers grow harder to understand. How can Commissioner David Stern tell all those NBA fans to go watch something else?

Why are owners and players willing to throw away all the momentum the league has built since last summer?

How can they shut it down now?

"It's an odd position, when the game is the best it's ever been, when the ratings are the highest they've ever been," Players Association attorney Jeffrey Kessler said. "It's sort of odd to see the owners say we're going to destroy this game unless you change this whole system. Players just want to play."

Nobody can predict when they'll get that chance again. When the Dallas Mavericks finished off the Miami Heat in the finals on Sunday, it sent the NBA into a most uncertain offseason.

Owners and players are nowhere close on a new collective bargaining agreement to replace the one that expires on June 30. Without a new deal, players say they have been told by the owners they will be locked out.

The NBA was reduced to a 50-game season by a work stoppage in 1998-99, and the loss of games is a threat now. Citing league-wide losses of about US$300 million this season, the league hasn't shifted on its desire for significant changes to the financial structure, ranging from reductions in the length of contracts and the amount of guarantees, to an overhaul of the salary cap system that would prevent teams from being able to exceed it, as they can now under certain exceptions.

And Stern said the record US TV ratings doesn't make him any more motivated to get this settled. "I don't need any external prod to want to be able to make a deal," he said.