Players need to face the facts or lose the WNBA

They used to say they were playing for the next generation, that the WNBA was about the future growth of women's basketball.

The players said they were playing so that the next batch of high-school prodigies wouldn't have to go overseas to play professionally.

The league was about dreams and equality. With the WNBA, a 12-year-old girl could have the same dreams as a 12-year-old boy.

Your brother could want to be like Mike, but now you could be like Sue Bird or Lisa Leslie.

Now, all of that altruism is turning into greed. The players of the WNBA are asking for raises they haven't earned. They want minimum salaries that don't make sense.

They are playing Russian roulette with their futures, and the barrel is spinning like the fruit in a slot machine.

On Monday, the league cancelled its draft, leaving the best players from this past college season — players like Tennessee's Kara Lawson and Louisiana Tech's Cheryl Ford — without a game.

And, last week, NBA Commissioner David Stern gave the league an ultimatum: If the players don't reach an agreement by Friday, the WNBA will suspend operations.

Don't the players get it? The teams aren't making money. The league isn't pulling good TV ratings. The players have no leverage. They have no, "or-else."

They can't threaten to strike; the league already has shut that door. They can't threaten to play for another league; there is none. They're lucky to be alive.

Their union has no bargaining power. Their demands have no teeth. They're trapped and they aren't stupid. They know their dilemma.

Their only alternative is to do what they did before the league was formed seven years ago. They can go to Europe or Japan and play for pay away from home.

The players of the WNBA need to be patient. Evolution happens glacially. This still is a young league, trying to elbow some space in a crowded sports calendar. They are playing a winter sport in the dead of summer.

It's a league that already has failed in Portland and Orlando and is struggling in most other cities. It is a woman's game in a man's world.

If truth be told, there are plenty of NBA executives and owners who would celebrate if the players union rejected the WNBA's offer and the league went quietly into the night.

There are many men inside the NBA who look at the WNBA as a pain they wish would go away.

Even Howard Schultz, the chairman of the Sonics and Storm, whom I believe wants the WNBA to succeed, is much less animated at Storm games than at Sonics games.

He's as visible as Squatch at Sonics games, standing near center court and asking fans to raise the roof. At Storm games, he's more aloof, sometimes watching from the shadows, sometimes leaving early.

The union can't win this fight. The players have about 48 hours to accept this, and negotiations don't resume until tomorrow.

Perspective is needed. The WNBA is a niche sport. Its audience is fanatical, but finite. And there is very little crossover of NBA fans to the WNBA.

If the league folds, the news wouldn't make a ripple on the street. It wouldn't be the lead story on SportsCenter. It wouldn't have an impact on any nonleague city the way the NBA impacts, say, Charleston, S.C.

News of the cancellation of WNBA draft warranted a mere paragraph in yesterday's USA Today.

If the union rejects the latest and last offer from the league, women's professional basketball will disappear and it won't return for at least another generation.

The differences between the two sides aren't wide enough to jeopardize the future of the game.

The league wants a five-year contract, a salary cap of $8.6 million and a 2.5 percent salary increase, putting the minimum salary for veteran players at about $41,200 for the three-month season. It is a fair deal.

But the union wants a three-year contract, a $10.5 million cap and a minimum salary of $48,000.

If they remain stubborn, the players will kill the league. It will bury the dreams of 12-year-old girls. It will steal away role models.

The union has to accept this deal. And it will, because the alternative is suicide.

Steve Kelley: 206-464-2176 or skelley@seattletimes.com.