NEW YORK - NBA players have until Wednesday to accept commissioner David Stern's latest offer, though the response already seems obvious.

"Right now, we've been given the ultimatum, and our answer is that's not acceptable to us," union president Derek Fisher said.

But the next proposal promises to be worse, surely moving players and owners even further apart and threatening to destroy the season.

Early on Sunday morning, the league said it offered players up to 51 percent of basketball-related income - a figure the union insists is fiction. Regardless, it will drop to 47 percent on Wednesday if players don't accept the current offer by the league-imposed deadline.

No agreement by the deadline likely will trigger more calls to disband the union and take on the league in court, a battle that would take months.

"It's fair to say that there are some who believe a vote to decertify is a vote to end the season," said a person familiar with the owners' thinking who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks. "The owners are hopeful that the players have a chance to vote on what is on the table, what's proposed now, because no one knows what happens next."

Players don't seem eager to act quickly.

"These are professional basketball players, the finest athletes in the world. How do you think they feel about threats? How do you think they feel about efforts at intimidation?" attorney Jeffrey Kessler said.

Fisher and Kessler said the league's time-sensitive deal - Stern refused to call it an ultimatum - came near the conclusion of Saturday's talks.

At a charity basketball game in Portland, Ore., on Sunday night, Kevin Durant expressed frustration with the stalemate.

"Sickening, man, just sickening," the Oklahoma City star said. "Us, as players, we sacrificed, we gave up money, we did what we had to do, now it's up to the owners, and it looks like they're not going to give in. At this point now, it's starting to get bad, because we've done all we can do, I think. They're trying to pressure us and back us in a corner. If they're going to do that, it's not fair. We're going to stand firm."

The sides had hoped they could complete a deal this weekend with the help of federal mediator George Cohen. He released a statement on Sunday commending the parties for "their willingness to examine solutions to their current dispute" and offering to assist in the future.

Although the revenue gap has narrowed, the sides are at a standstill on the system issues players insist are just as important.

The union believes the league's proposals to increase luxury tax penalties, and eliminate or reduce some spending options, essentially would prevent the biggest-spending teams from being free agent options. A "repeater tax" would further punish teams that were taxpayers a fourth time in a five-year span, and players fear the penalty that awaits teams who receive money from the tax pool but suddenly take on salary and go into the tax would discourage spending.

Associated Press