And that’s what the NBA’s labor tussle has come to. After a year of white-knuckle negotiations, a tentative deal was reached only to have the players demand to renegotiate parts of it.

Actually, the players are just a front. The rebellion is being forced by agents, who fear a luxury tax would put a crimp in their earnings. In the deal that is on hold, the owners obliged the players and raised the roof of the salary cap from $15 million to $23 million next season and an estimated $32.5 million by the sixth and final year of the agreement. That means salaries would more than double in six years. Try going to the office and getting that from the boss.

However, there would be a luxury tax. A team could exceed the cap limits to re-sign its own players but would be taxed at 50 percent (growing to 100 percent) of the amount in excess of a 10 percent raise. Simon Gourdine, the executive director of the player’s union, believes most owners will ante up anyway to keep their franchise players happy and in-pocket.

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But the players (read:agents) don’t want to risk it. In a meeting last Friday, they ordered Gourdine to seek a drastic revision, if not an abolishment of the tax altogether. While the players have every right to ask for the moon, they should not expect to get it. The owners were fair. They gave rookies the right to walk away from their teams in three years.

Don’t underestimate that kind of leverage. Imagine the kind of cash Shaquille O’Neal, who just finished his third season, would command on the open market.