Most Valuable, and Most Likely to Leave?

Val Ackerman, the seemingly unflappable president of the WNBA, may soon have her first major headache--keeping her league’s best player in the league.

It’s a money-rooted problem, not surprisingly. Cynthia Cooper of the Houston Comets, who is about to be named the league’s most valuable player, makes the $50,000 WNBA “maximum” salary. With incentives, she could earn $100,000 this season.

But Lisa Leslie, Rebecca Lobo and Sheryl Swoopes all make $250,000 under terms of their WNBA personal-services contracts.

So what happens when Cooper tells Ackerman, “OK, if I’m the best player in the league, I want to be paid like it.”

Remember, the rival ABL is paying rookies such as Kate Starbird and Kara Wolters $200,000-$250,000. Might Cooper consider jumping leagues?

Her agent, Carolyn Redd, first said no, that Cooper’s “values” wouldn’t permit her to jump.

But what if Cooper views a WNBA salary increase as insufficient? What if the ABL offers her, say, $250,000?

“We’d entertain that, if it happened,” Redd said.

“Cynthia is the sole support of four members of her family.... Her Mom is battling breast cancer and there are college tuition expenses. As it is, she has to double up this year. She’ll go to Brazil and play after the WNBA season ends.

“And she left a lot of money on the table in Europe when she decided to sign with the WNBA.”

WNBA contracts carry a one-year league option, meaning anyone planning a jump to the ABL would have to sit out a year and play overseas. That wouldn’t seem much of a deterrent. American women have been doing that for 15 years.

Opinion: If it came down to Cooper’s considering a jump to the ABL, that would greatly hasten some form of ABL-WNBA merger.

OTHER PLANS

She is 6 feet 8 1/2 in her bare feet, 6-10 in basketball shoes.

When she played at Vanderbilt--class of ‘94--Heidi Gillingham could run like a deer, jump and block shots like no one else in her sport. Just her presence in Vandy’s defense altered opponents’ offenses, frightening them out of their low-post games.

Scan the list of women’s basketball All-Americans for the last 15 years and you’ll find almost all are playing in one or the other of the United States’ two new pro leagues.

Almost.

The biggest player of them all is still AWOL.

At every stop in the WNBA this season, her name comes up at least once. As in, “What ever became of Heidi Gillingham?”

If Gillingham were playing in the WNBA, she would be leading the league in blocks and probably would have twice as many as the runner-up.

So where is she? In Gulfport, Miss., where, she says, she isn’t the least bit interested in playing in either the WNBA or ABL.

Gillingham is developing a religious organization of athletes, “an offshoot of Athletes in Action” as she put it.

She last played in the trials for the 1996 U.S. Olympic team.

“Whether I made the Olympic team or not, I knew that would be my last basketball,” she said.

“I didn’t make it, and that was it. I’ve been doing full-time missionary work ever since. In September, I’m enrolling in discipleship school in Denver.”

THE RATINGS

NBC’s Ed Markey says his network’s WNBA ratings are running “about even with NHL telecasts.

“We were thinking maybe 1.7 to 1.9 before the season and we’re averaging 2.1” he said, pointing out those numbers translate to about 2 million TV households per telecast.

The 2.1 figure is high, he said, reflecting the 3.7 rating the inaugural New York-Los Angeles game pulled in June 21.

“Since then, the average has settled in at 1.8,” Markey said.

IN BRIEF That 11th spot on the ABL’s Long Beach StingRay roster will probably be filled by 5-7 Hungarian guard Andrea Nagy. She played last season with Seattle of the ABL, backing up Kate Paye at point guard. . . . Long Beach State’s east gym will be the team’s training camp site, beginning Sept. 2.

The Stingrays said Monday that Michele Cherry, former Arizona State standout, has been hired as an assistant to Coach Maura McHugh. Cherry played for McHugh at ASU. . . . Carolyn Redd, Cynthia Cooper’s agent, wants to increase her client’s marketing visibility in the Southern California market and is considering a fall weekend girls’ basketball camp at Cooper’s alma mater, USC...Recommended reading: “Shooting from the Outside,” Tara VanDerveer’s book about the pressures of coaching the 1996 U.S. women’s Olympic team. She writes that shortly after she was named coach, NBA boss David Stern told her: “The only person who can mess this up is you.”

The ABA’s Seattle Reign, with Starbird in the fold, has sold 1,500 season tickets, up from 1,200 last season. The club, which plays in 4,623-seat Mercer Arena, is shooting for 2,000. . . . The WNBA will send an all-star team to Europe for two exhibition games and some clinics in October. . . . The WNBA’s attendance average is 9,341 through Sunday.