Professional athletes have been overpaid for years. The athletic world’s greatest stars have also tended to be obnoxious, arrogant and self-centered. This is nothing new.

Yet over the years, we have always managed to look the other way. We have developed various rationales for the ridiculous contracts and done our best to ignore the frequent outlandish statements that spew from the mouths of these supposed role models.

Instead of questioning the wisdom of showering millions of dollars on immature egomaniacs, we comforted ourselves with explanations like, “When you consider how much money is made on professional sports, the athletes deserve multi-million dollar contracts” and “there are so few people in the world with that level of physical talent; athletes deserve to be generously rewarded for their rare ability.”

We periodically cringed when our heroes committed particularly egregious violations of our trust and admiration (you know, like a felony), but for the most part we disregarded their periodic indiscretions (read: drug use, drunk driving, sexual harassment, etc.)

But things are getting out of hand. The egregious is becoming increasingly prevalent and athletes are receiving such spectacular sums that they can’t help but become arrogant, obnoxious and self-centered. After signing enough multi-million dollar contracts, you start to feel like you deserve them.

It has come to the point that Latrell Sprewell is “insulted” that he was only offered a 10 million dollar contract. And why shouldn’t he be? The offer is a full 4.6 million dollars stingier than his current deal.

The problem is not that Sprewell is unconscionably greedy (though he certainly is). The real problem is that the world of professional sports has become so far removed from reality that a player of Sprewell’s stature is strangely justified in demanding a contract worth more than 10 million dollars a year. It happens all the time. In fact, if Sprewell hadn’t moronically turned to the “I need to feed my family” argument, no one would even be discussing this.

So, why shouldn’t Sprewell be insulted by an offer of 10 million dollars a year? After all, Mehmet Okur signed a six-year deal worth 50 million dollars. Carlos Boozer signed for six years at 68 million. Back in 1996, Juwan Howard was given a 105 million dollar offer for seven years. If Howard is worth 15 million a year, Spree should make at least 35.

So, why are we surprised to hear that Sprewell is insulted by a 10 million dollar offer? Because in our world, this is absolutely insane. In the world outside of professional sports, the world in which the rest of us live, 10 million dollars is enough to not only feed a family, but to feed a number of small countries.

Those of us who are not professional athletes simply can not understand how a person can be insulted by an offer that is beyond our wildest dreams. However, in the world of professional sports, 10 million dollars a year is an offer that is extended to a mediocre forward with a mid-range jumper, a young big man with promise and a reserve forward from Turkey who has never averaged more than 23 minutes per game.

There is a tremendous disconnect between the world of professional sports and the rest of society. In our world, $100,000 a year is a significant salary. In the NBA, $385,277 a year is the league minimum. In other words, the worst players in the league are worth more than three times as much as an upper middle class individual who is not a professional athlete.

Money has become a barometer by which players are measured. Like postseason accolades and All-Star Game appearances, the size of a player’s contract is a reflection of his talent level. If Boozer makes 11.3 million a year, Sprewell is insulted by anything less because in his mind a 10 million dollar offer sends the message that he is less talented than the Utah center.

Of course he could feed his family on 10 million a year. Even in the bizarre fantasy world in which he lives, he must realize that. But in the bizarre fantasy world of professional basketball, a 10 million dollar offer is an insult for a player who has averaged 18.8 points a game over his 13-year career.

All arguments about the value of an aging All-Star with major behavior issues (read: strangling a coach and brandishing a two-by-four in an altercation with a teammate) aside, the current state of affairs in professional basketball is such that elite players are conditioned to expect contracts in excess of 10 million a year.

Whether or not you believe, as I do, that absurdly large contracts have contributed to the rise in off the court problems (if the players didn’t have millions of dollars in disposable income, maybe they wouldn’t buy so many illegal substances), we can all agree that something is fundamentally wrong with a financial system in which an offer of 10 million dollars a year is insulting.

If the NBA is concerned with the perception that its players are arrogant and self-centered, perhaps league officials should consider the players’ salaries. It’s hard to avoid coming off as arrogant when you make 10 million dollars a year.

I know the NBA is a tremendously lucrative entertainment business and I know the players have tremendously rare athletic ability, but that doesn’t mean they need to bring in eight figure salaries.

If our last presidential election has taught us anything, it is that the common man likes nothing more than the image of the common man. People like sons of mill workers and good ol’ God-fearing Southerners (even if they did attend Ivy League schools and run the Texas Rangers).

Conversely, people detest whiny millionaires who can’t lower themselves to accept 10 million dollar offers. Commissioner Stern better have his PR guys working overtime because the gap between overpaid superstars and the common man is a difficult one to overcome.