The NBA and FIBA is attempting to redirect Olympic revenues into a rebranded world championship.

They are pushing for 23 and under rule to the Olympics to make for what would become basketball's version of the World Cup.

The players have the ability to prevent it from happening, but they have been left without a voice in the matter.

"The players definitely have power, because we're the ones out there playing," Team USA's Tyson Chandler told Yahoo! Sports on Saturday. "If the players chose not to play because they've taken something away from us, then obviously we control it."

But "the players' interests are barely on (Billy Hunter's) radar because he's in complete self-preservation mode," writes Adrian Wojnarowski.

The players are disorganized due to Hunter's push to survive a probe of the union's business practices.

"As we go down that road, I know we're going to push for letting us have the choice whether we want to play in the Olympics or not – no matter the age," Kevin Love told Yahoo! Sports. 

A World Cup version of basketball couldn't come close to matching soccer on popularity and economic levels, but it would be a new revenue stream for owners.

"The question is: Why would we partner with a current tournament rather than start our own?" Mavericks owner Mark Cuban told Yahoo! Sports in June. "If done correctly, it can be NBA-owned and operated and have the potential to be just as large as the World Cup of soccer. That is a product, in my opinion, we want to own, not share."

Tim Duncan’s $11.5 million pay cut enabled the Spurs to re-sign Boris Diaw, Danny Green, and Patty Mills and still drop below the NBA’s projected luxury-tax threshold for next season.

The Spurs have 14 players with guaranteed contracts, at a total of $69.13 million.

The luxury tax threshold will be set at $70.307 million for the 2012-13 season.

While teams over the luxury tax will be hurt financially with a punitive penalty, the limitations of sign-and-trades for those teams will be even more of an issue in the eyes of Mark Cuban.

"The financial side isn't the big hurdle," Cuban said. "That's just money. It's the flexibility. I don't want to be in a position where I can't do a sign-and-trade for somebody if that can help my team. I can't get a free agent because I have no cap room -- all I have is $3 million -- and I can't do a sign-and-trade. The trades are limited to 125 percent [in matching salary], so you can't be that team that takes on a bunch of bad contracts. ... That's how we've always done it, taking somebody else's mistakes."

Under the previous CBA, the Mavericks frequently agreed to sign-and-trades while already being over the tax threshold.

"It's tougher to put finishing pieces in place," Cuban said. "And it's tougher to trade your way to a championship team if you're over the tax. You're going to have to take a step back and create flexibility in order to do the trades because otherwise, if you're already over the tax, you're stuck.

"Everybody's saying, 'Oh, there's all these people spending all this money,' " Cuban said. "There's what, seven teams that went crazy early on and spent all the money, and 23 did nothing except re-sign their own guys or a little play here or there? So I think it's dramatically changed the activities. Maybe we're all wrong and the seven teams that went crazy are right. We'll see."

The NBA Board of Governors approved the inclusion of advertisements on game uniforms for the 13-14 season.

Small advertising could generate $100 million in new revenue.

"The view is, that the teams would need a significant time; one, to sell the patch; and number two, for Adidas to manufacture the uniforms, because the patch that would be on the players' uniforms would also appear on the jerseys at retail," said Deputy Commissioner Adam Silver.

Professional soccer teams have long had advertisements on uniforms and the NBA is using their numbers as projections for revenues.

Jeremy Lin still wants to be a Knick, according to a source with knowledge of the player’s thinking.

“He did not see this happening,” Peter Diepenbrock, Lin’s coach at Palo Alto (Calif.) High School, told Yahoo! Sports. “He sounded surprised. He loves the New York fans. To have the experience that he had for the two months and for that to be over with, that’s quite a shock to the system. I think he really believed the Knicks would match whatever offer he got.”

The Knicks have not decided whether to match Lin’s back-loaded three-year, $25 million offer sheet from Houston.

Matching the offer to Lin could cost the Knicks $43.4 million in luxury tax penalties for the 2014-15 season.

Danny Ferry sent Marvin Williams to the Jazz and Joe Johnson to the Nets for Devin Harris and enough cap space to sign two max-level players in the near future.

"We, going forward, we wanted to be in a situation where we could be opportunistic," Ferry said. "As we stood now, we were a good team, a very good team, but not a championship-level team and even that wasn't going to be sustainable, possibly, so we now established ourselves within the new CBA to be both strategic and assertive to build a team that can sustain success and ultimately play at a championship caliber."

Ferry declined to put a percentage on how close he was to completing Atlanta’s roster for the 2012-13 season.

"We'll continue to look at all of our options and opportunities, but, certainly, we put ourselves in a position today to look at -- I have possibly more options to look at this year, but also for the future," Ferry said.

The NBA has announced that the salary cap for the 12-13 season is $58.044 million.

The luxury tax level is set at $70.307 million.

The cap is the same as it was for the 11-12 season.

As owners of Deron Williams’ Bird Rights, the Nets were able to offer one more year and larger pay raises than any other team.

“Honestly, when I thought about my decision and talked to my agent, we never once talked about the extra money,” Williams said. “I don't think it's as relevant as people think, because of the taxes and things like that. There's no state tax in Texas, and you've got city tax in New York. So the money wasn't that big of a difference in the four years to the five years. And I feel like barring any career-ending injury, that I'll have a chance to make that up anyways. I'll be 32. That wasn't my concern. My concern was making a basketball decision as far as the players that I was going to be around.”

Williams cited his comfort level with Billy King and Avery Johnson as a key factor in his decision to sign with the Nets.

“That was a big part of that as well,” Williams said. “I definitely have a good relationship with both of those guys, and that was something that I didn't have so much in Utah. It's different. It's great. I love the organization. They're a family friendly organization, always thinking of ways to be the best, and I like that.”

If the Nets deal for Dwight Howard, Mikhail Prokhorov will pay a luxury tax of $107.5 million over the next four years, according to a league source.

Mark Cuban issued a warning to owners like Prokhorov.

“If they spend wisely, possibly (there’s an advantage),” Cuban wrote in an e-mail. “If they spend it on what turns out to be bad contracts, particularly contracts signed under the old CBA, then it doesn’t matter how much money you spend. You are locked into only being able to improve your team using the taxpayer’s exception.

“That puts you at a distinct disadvantage.”

Micky Arison said the Heat is likely to lose money again this year.

“This is a hobby of passion, it’s not a business,” said Arison, who took control of the team in 1995. “Every year in the building we’ve lost money aside from last year, under the old Collective Bargaining Agreement, because of LeBron.”

Arison lamented the new the collective bargaining agreement, specifically revenue sharing.

“With the new Collective Bargaining Agreement, it works against us because of the dollars we had under contract already and the revenue sharing,” Arison said.

“Where we find ourselves struggling is our local TV revenue is smaller than big markets and despite sellouts we’re only seventh or eighth in gate revenues,” Arison added. “Obviously our payrolls are up and our revenues are not because of the limitations of our market.”