Laker Trade May Signal Big Deal

Is it true the Hundred Million Dollars War, otherwise known as the NBA’s free-agent chase, threatens not only the Lakers, but the game and Western Civilization as we know it?

Relax. It’s only partly true.

Yes, the NBA frenzy can be seen as a metaphor for the widening gap between rich and poor, but guess what? It’s happening not only in basketball or in sports, and it didn’t start last Thursday. Remember the ‘80s?

It may, indeed, separate athletes from fans, which is supposed to have hurt baseball stars. However, basketball players have had higher earnings than baseball players for years while passing them in popularity, as measured by commercials and endorsements. Fans might not mind rich baseball players as much if so many of them weren’t having a tantrum a day.

It’s certainly hard for the Lakers, who threw a center overboard in their wild Shaquille O’Neal chase and erased two more players Tuesday to stay in it.

However, many people are baffled by this process so we should clear some things up:

1. Where is this money coming from?

It comes out of the owners’ vaults. The NBA remains one of the few leagues with a salary cap so don’t worry about them.

The cap recently went from $16 million to $24 million, an unprecedented leap, caused by the new collective bargaining agreement’s re-definition of revenue, of which players get 53%.

Before, money from the sale of licensed merchandise, like caps and T-shirts, wasn’t included. Players got an annual $500,000, an absurdly low figure, agreed to before sales took off. Last season, the NBA reaped a reported $3 billion in licensing money, more than $10 million per team.

TV and luxury suite revenue are also increasing. The bottom line is that the average team’s “defined revenue” has gone up about $16 million per year--53% of which goes on the cap.

If an owner is $8 million under, he can give it to a free agent with a 20% raise the next six years, a seven-year, $89.6 million contract. If revenues merely stay flat over that period, the owner will have earned an extra $112 million.

To make a long story short, the reason the owners are giving players all this money is, they’ve got it and more.

2. Should the Lakers have gone after Shaquille O’Neal?

Seemed like a good idea at the time.

3. How about now?

Looks like that time is past.

Unless he’s putting on a good show, he really wants to stay in Orlando. Because the Magic can bid whatever it wants for its own player, and since owner Rich DeVos, the Amway magnate, has major financial resources, it looks bad for the Lakers.

4. Why doesn’t Shaq want to leave?

He loves Southern California and the Hollywood scene but his mother, who has moved much of the family to Orlando, would like him to stay. Despite his fun-loving nature, Shaq has listened to his parents’ advice at critical junctures; he stayed an extra year at LSU because his stepfather told him to.

5. Which teams have done best in this thing?

The Heat got Juwan Howard, a rising star, to go with Alonzo Mourning. The aged Knicks got three good young players, Larry Johnson, Allan Houston and Chris Childs.

6. So they’re title contenders?

Maybe not.

The Knicks have to put together five starters who played on four teams last season. They have to re-sign Patrick Ewing next season when he’s 35. They owe Johnson a $6-million bonus next July, and $77 million over nine seasons.

In other words, they’re all out of moves for the century.

The Heat’s other starters are Walt Williams, Sasha Danilovic and Tim Hardaway. Having committed an average of $30 million a year to Mourning and Howard, Pat Riley is out of moves too.

7. Who did the worst?

The Bullets, who lost Howard, and the Pistons, who lost Houston.

Howard said he was going to stay with his buddy, Chris Webber, and then bailed. Webber is probably going over his own contract now with a magnifying glass, looking for a way out.

8. How could they let young stars like that go?

It may have been taken out of their hands. Both players were represented by David Falk.

Falk is known among general managers as the smartest of the agents, and the most imperious. He has his own agenda and is a genius at getting clients to follow it. He and the Bullets are on bad terms so Howard winds up in Miami, which is now expected to re-sign used-up Rex Chapman--another Falk client.

Houston, a Falk client, was recruited in New York by Ewing, another client.

9. Have the Lakers lost their minds, talking to Dennis Rodman?

Here’s how wild this process is: You can make a case for it.

Suppose they can’t get Shaq. No other free agent will make them a champion--so why not sign Rodman for a year or two, in effect parking their money, letting the other teams “cap” themselves anew like the Heat and Knicks, and come back in 1997 or 1998 when there are new free agents and fewer bidders?

In the meantime, Rodman may keep them competitive. He can’t turn Del Harris’ hair white because it’s already there; maybe he can show him how to dye it all the colors of the rainbow.

Whatever else he does, Rodman won’t tie their money up long term. In the future, cap management is going to be the ball game.

Let’s see if anyone learns to play it.