LONDON – The most incredible part of the debate about the NBA's desire to run its superstars out of the Olympics is simple: The players can stop it. They're left to believe that they're without voices on the matter, that they're at the mercy of the commissioner, owners, and FIBA, who are conspiring to redirect all those Olympic revenues and control into the rebranded world championships.

While the NBA and FIBA work together to sell TV networks and sponsors on the prospect of a tournament with the best basketball players in the world, the stars can complicate the dynamics of a deal with a unified declaration: Push for an under-23 basketball tournament in the Olympics, and we won't be representing the United States in a new World Cup tournament.

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NBA superstars subsidize the sport in a way that doesn't exist in the NFL or Major League Baseball -- or anywhere else. And the stars most responsible for selling the sport's appeal are getting freedom and finances squeezed in unprecedented ways. Owners have restricted freedom of movement in the NBA with salary-cap and sign-and-trade restrictions. Now, they're determined to also do it globally.

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"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."

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Chandler is 31, and this won't be his fight for the future. Unless the players unite, make a stand, and stop the NBA's imperialistic designs, they're going to get trampled the way they always do. That's an indisputable fact. As much as any sport's top athletes, NBA stars drive everything: The TV ratings, sponsorships, ticket sales, merchandizing -- everything. It's true in the United States, and far more true overseas, where the inclusion of Kobe Bryant, LeBron James -- and the next generation -- has the power to turn a niche international basketball tournament into a global happening.

The solution is simple here, but there's a reason the players have been left drifting on the issue, uninformed and unaware of the NBA's behind-the-scenes machinations to move a plan with FIBA into motion: Players Association executive director Billy Hunter is too weakened and distracted to engage the issue. For months, Hunter has been hell-bent on burning through the NBPA's coffers to bankroll lawyers to try and protect himself in a joint probe into the union's business practices by the U.S. Attorney's Office and Department of Labor. The players' interests are barely on his radar because he's in complete self-preservation mode.

The investigators have seized union records and emails, sources say, and have interviewed numerous staff employees on how the union does business under Hunter -- and who and what entities benefit financially. The NBPA has been torn into two distinct groups: Hunter, family members, and fierce staff loyalists against everyone else. Rest assured: When this is over, the only guaranteed losers are the NBA's players. Hunter isn't defending them now -- he's defending himself. And the cost in wasted money, resources, and manpower will be steep.

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