Having trouble unloading that condo in Palm Springs? Try moving lengthy contracts in today's NBA marketplace. And yet, not everyone will land a LeBron or a Kobe or a Wade.

With the Nets, it appears the long view already is turning into a distorted view. Last time we checked, that rail yard in Brooklyn is still a rail yard, not an ascending arena.

Somehow we're not quite as sure LeBron is instead envisioning a future in East Rutherford or Newark.

Then there's the historical lesson.

Beyond a Shaquille O'Neal who had outgrown Orlando, a Baron Davis whose desire to be a Hollywood baron necessitated SoCal sustenance or an Elton Brand who allowed a suddenly relevant David Falk to create a Philadelphia freedom, NBA stars don't usually relocate through free agency.

Just ask Clippers fans, who could have sworn they had Bryant the last time Kobe was a free agent.

Collective-bargaining rules allow for longer contracts and a lot more money if a free agent stays in place. It is why LeBron, Carmelo, Bosh and Wade went for rookie extensions instead of immediate exposure to the market.

And those rules aren’t changing. The current CBA will run through at least the 2010 offseason. For now, the only thing many teams around the league are buying is time, selling the image of that silhouetted player behind that curtain.

A Heat team coming off a league-worst season, Nets and Knicks teams caught in the purgatory of mediocrity, and a descending Pistons team are championing futures that might never arrive.

In each case, there is front-office brilliance, from Pat Riley to Rod Thorn to Donnie Walsh to Dumars. Those are not the type of names you doubt. But it doesn't mean there won't be considerably more teams in the mix by 2010.

Remember, amid their seduction of Shaq in 1996, the Lakers lacked the funds for a signing. Then they sold off George Lynch and Anthony Peeler to the Grizzlies for nothing more than "future considerations." Voila! Instant cap space. And an instant dynasty.

The NBA is a league constantly in flux. It is the reason Allen Iverson one day is in Philadelphia, the next day is in Denver, and then the next day is in Detroit.

Things change over weeks, months, and certainly years. Already half the league has enough 2010 cap space to sign an elite free agent to a max contract. What fans in so many cities are being sold with the 2010s well may emerge as false promise.

The entire league needs to knock it off, needs to talk about the present moment, the present hope. Or are tickets and television rights going to be refunded over these next two seasons?

To be actively selling July 2010 to fans in November 2008 is to render the coming weeks, months, years meaningless. Only in the NBA do you find yourself wishing away two years of your life.

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