Storm Warning

It’s the end of the world as we know it, as usual: If you like the NBA, you’d better take a deep breath because it could look much different in a year.

How about Michael Jordan as a Laker and Charles Barkley as a New York Knick?

Or Barkley as a Laker and Jordan retired?

Or Commissioner David Stern locking everyone out until Christmas?

Storm clouds are gathering over a league in which things have never been better and worse at the same time.

The NBA is awash in cash, but there’s a growing split between haves and have-nots, with nine teams losing money last season.

Salaries are rocketing, but there’s an even more dramatic spread between the Jordans and Patrick Ewings, getting $34 million and $20 million this season, respectively, and the 30% of the players, according to their union, at minimum pay.

Of course, minimum pay is $272,250. Almost everyone is making out. Hardly anyone is happy. Sounds like a prescription for tumult.

Here’s where it will come from:

LABOR

The league that has never lost a game to a labor action now looks as though it’s overdue.

Neither Stern, the owners or players like the collective bargaining agreement and all seem ready to rumble.

Stern has already warned he may reopen the agreement next summer. He used to worry about his perfect labor record but may have decided a fight is inevitable and he may as well dictate the time and circumstances and see if the other side is for real.

Stern is known for smiling first and then sending in the B-52s, not for bluffing. In 1995, he christened himself “Easy Dave” and locked the players out all summer.

The union is effectively in the hands of David Falk and the other agents who tried to decertify it two years ago, to continue the struggle with Stern. Falk’s idea of problem solving is 1) explain your position patiently, 2) wait for your adversary to do what you want and 3) if he doesn’t, blast him.

Let’s just say there doesn’t seem to be much spirit of compromise.

FREE AGENTS

Due to hit the market next summer are Jordan, Barkley, Scottie Pippen, Vlade Divac, Rik Smits, Clyde Drexler, Joe Smith, Jim Jackson, Antonio McDyess, Jerry Stackhouse, Damon Stoudamire, Tom Gugliotta, Jayson Williams, Loy Vaught and Brent Barry, to name a few.

Of course, no one would be allowed to negotiate during a lockout. That happened in ’95 too, but no one cared because there were no star players to be had.

BULLS

All the king’s horses and all the king’s men won’t be able to put them back together again next fall. Not that the king, owner Jerry Reinsdorf, wants to.

Coach Phil Jackson and Pippen, long at odds with Reinsdorf and/or General Manager Jerry Krause, are expected to leave.

This would present Jordan with a decision: Accept a new coach, though he has vowed not to; retire, though people close to him say that, at least for now, he intends to keep playing; or go elsewhere and show Reinsdorf. That’s more Jordan’s style.

Of course, being Jordan, he would only go to a winning team in a glamour market . . .

(And you can golf year-round in this glamour market!)

COACHES

Suddenly, they’re superstars too, with salaries up to Rick Pitino’s $7 million.

Seven (Pitino, Pat Riley, Larry Brown, John Calipari, Gregg Popovich, P.J. Carlesimo, Rudy Tomjanovich) have sole control of their team’s basketball operations too. Not all, however, have proved they’re up to the task.

Pitino signed Chris Mills for $33 million and traded him six weeks later, at least raising the suggestion he doesn’t know what he’s doing. Brown, who has shown a continuing desire to back up the truck, now has the keys.

General managers with experience and track records may be the next lucky segment of the economy to reap a salary explosion. What the heck, Carlesimo, the new boss at Golden State, hired Garry St. Jean as what amounts to a personnel director--at $1 million a year, more than any general manager makesother than Jerry West.

Of course, star coaches will still be in demand. Big-name guys in the final year of contracts include Jackson, George Karl and Doug Collins.

TELEVISION

Stern is negotiating new deals with NBC and Turner Sports, with ESPN and Fox dying for a piece of the action. The NBA has held its ratings as baseball and even the NFL declined (Dear Mike, Thanks for coming back. Your pal, Dave) and could double its $275-million annual rights fee.

Not that the extra bucks will soothe any brows. Hardship led to community and the golden era of the ‘80s, but all prosperity has brought in the ‘90s is strife, with more coming.