Neither Side Has Game in Lockout

Thinking the unthinkable?

By now, it looks like the league and union won’t make a deal until the 59th minute of the 11th hour before David Stern’s “drop-dead” date, whenever that is.

This, of course, assumes they have the sense God gave a houseplant and recognize the worst deal they make is infinitely better for everyone than what will follow if they can’t arrive at one--namely the end of the NBA as we know it.

Of course, if a real stalemate, as opposed to all this obnoxious posturing, and a torched season are the best they can deliver, good riddance to all of them.

The problem with brinkmanship is, it won’t take much of a miscalculation or an inflammatory remark to blow the whole thing up. Since distrust, misunderstanding and inflamed rhetoric is what these negotiations have been about, you can see the peril their joint venture is in.

Stern announced, “It’s more likely we won’t have a season than we will have a season.” In NBA offices, where they used to know better, they’re discussing going all the way to oblivion as if it were an option instead of a catastrophe.

There’s more at stake here than merely losing their season, alienating their sponsors and forsaking their fan base.

Try surrendering their monopoly on professional basketball.

The day Stern pulls the plug, the TV executives who have had their noses pressed to the window while NBC and Turner locked up NBA rights through the ‘90s get a chance to form their own league around more than 300 well-known players who are--or soon will be--free agents, including Michael Jordan, Shaquille O’Neal, Kobe Bryant, Scottie Pippen, Penny Hardaway, Allen Iverson and Stephon Marbury.

NBC and Turner are forming a football league out of nothing to go against the mighty NFL because they lost the contract and need the programming. Why wouldn’t Fox and ESPN, which exist to carry sports, bankroll a new circuit that can pick from the NBA’s brightest stars?

That’s what this Atlantic City exhibition, which will feature out-of-shape stars playing no defense before a tiny viewing audience on Showtime, is all about--reminding Stern there’s TV money out there for anything resembling professional basketball.

Nevertheless, Stern is playing hardball, presenting a long list of demands, decrying the current structure while ignoring the $13 million raise (from $9 million annually to $22 million) each team started getting from the new TV package.

Significantly, the league seems more worried about economic woes than its owners are. Take Team X, which was recently reported to have lost more than $10 million.

A Team X official was talking to a reporter, which is strictly proscribed--and punishable by a $1 million fine by Stern--although everyone does it.

“I heard you lost $10 million,” said the reporter.

“Well,” said the Team X official, “we did and we didn’t.”

Take a bow, Team X accountants.

Stern wants to cap top salaries to 35% of the salary cap (or less, depending on years of service). Since this will give the owners their all-important cost certainty, and won’t impoverish any player, it is wholly warranted.

However, Stern is also pushing a “timing” proposal that says a team can’t use its cap space to go outside and sign a free agent, then exceed the cap to sign its own free agents.

Since the union will accept a 10% escrow above the revenue split--in other words, protecting the league as long as salaries don’t exceed 63 or 64%--it’s hard to imagine why Stern would be thinking of shutting down his league for an extra, probably unnecessary, safeguard.

“Poverty” is only one myth being promulgated these days. Others include “civility” and “solidarity.”

We’re told that negotiating sessions are cordial if unproductive, since no one wants to look like he’s carrying a grudge and refusing to deal out of pique. The real truth, say a wide array of sources, is both sides despise each other. This dispute may be less about numbers than it is about winning.

According to the “solidarity” myth, all owners and players are united behind their peerless leaders. What exists is merely the appearance thereof, enforced by threats of fines or ostracism.

A lot of owners are upset, starting with the Lakers’ Jerry Buss. The Suns’ Jerry Colangelo, who started out backing Stern, has reportedly switched over to the peaceniks. Not that you will ever hear a peep out of any of them since Stern, who runs the show with a soft voice and an iron hand, would bring down his $1-million hammer.

The union side is even a bigger flimflam since a silent--or cowed--majority of players is for capping the stars’ salaries and getting on with it.

So for another week or two, we’re stuck with Stern’s maneuvers and, worse, the thoughts of Alonzo Mourning, the famously overpaid Miami center who helped end Heat hopes last spring by getting himself suspended for fighting the Knicks’ Larry Johnson, in his new role as member of the union’s board of directors.

Surprise, ‘Zo isn’t for taking any prisoners here, either.

“This lockout won’t end until the owners get as much as they can out of the players,” he said before last week’s meeting. “It comes down to greed on their [owners’] part. . . . We’ve compromised way more than enough. It’s time for us to dig our heels into the ground and make a stand.”

It’s time to thank ‘Zo for his time and give him a plane ticket home so the grown-ups, should they find any, can make up.

Get ready for a late charge back to sanity, followed by the combatants joining arms and singing “What the World Needs Now Is Love.”

Or, failing that, the Fox Basketball Assn., even if it isn’t quite the same. Going off past performance, look for it to try a glowing orange basketball and trade Jordan back to the NBA.