He’s Making a List, and They’re All Naughty

It’s a stupid world, after all: As a quasi-entertainment spectacle, a labor negotiation is like an amusement park ride, where a vehicle whisks you around on rails to see various shows.

In the sad case of the NBA vs. its players, fans have been treated to Disappointment, Exasperation, Offended Righteousness and Breakdowns in Talks, happily ignoring them and, according to TV ratings, switching to college basketball.

This is a good start. Personally, I hope you all have worse things in mind for our fat cats, managerial and uniformed alike, namely staying away in droves, should they manage to start this season.

You want them to start treating you with respect? Stop behaving like sheep, waiting to be shorn.

It was hardly surprising this happened, because you could see it coming. As far back as 1995, the insurgents seized the union and began contesting mundane actions, such as the suspension of brawling Miami Heat and New York Knick players in 1997, which they went so far as to challenge in federal court. As long ago as last fall, the league began planning its lockout, getting the TV networks to sign off (as a price for signing new deals) and the owners to OK a war.

It wasn’t surprising a union, composed mostly of grown-up poor kids, would respond to emotional pleas aimed at their manhood and resist to the end. With everyone mobilized, it seemed likely they’d cancel the start of the season, write off November, posture until mid-December and finally, at the very last moment, make a deal, which still looks like the way to bet.

It’s the tone, not the process, that has made this the NBA’s low point since the early ‘80s, when drug rumors were rampant and several teams were on their last gasps. Now, when the issue is dividing $2 billion, the dialogue has become too mean-spirited to bear.

Fortunately or not, the dialogue has now died down to nothing, what with David Stern about to vacation in Aspen and Billy Hunter headed for San Francisco.

Stern hasn’t accepted his salary since Aug. 1. One thing you have to give him, he has been worth every penny.

As they used to say, you’re either part of the problem or part of the solution. Because there has been no solution, they’re all part of the problem.

In case anyone still cares enough to want to know whom to be most disappointed in, we’re glad to provide a list:

1. David Falk--The richest and, according to a lot of general managers who have no reason to speak well of him, the smartest of the agents, the one man besides Stern most responsible for the advent of modern sports marketing, this may have been more his show than any single person on the players’ side.

Insiders say he doesn’t really run the union (though he is reportedly enjoying the perception), but it may be close enough. By packing the board with clients who repeat his slogans like automatons, Falk has effectively guided the leadership in his inimitable style--toward his agenda. Thus, for months, the union claimed to be promoting the interests of all members but clung stubbornly to the defense of high-end items, such as the revenue split and the Larry Bird exception.

Falk, fabulously wealthy by now and universally feared, if not admired, could have sat this one out but seems more motivated by face than money. His arrogance is astounding; he’s constantly vowing revenge on someone for refusing his suggestions/marching orders, as in recent promises to get the Clippers for passing up his client, Mike Bibby, in the draft.

Falk has looked for years as if he wants to show Stern who’s boss. Hence, his Atlantic City exhibition, a reminder TV might bankroll a new league. Happily, it has drawn lukewarm support from players (Falk’s crown jewel, Michael Jordan, has yet to consent to even sit on the bench in civilian clothes) and has been a public relations debacle.

As Stern might have told Falk, if only they were talking, being commissioner of this bunch ain’t as much fun as you might think.

2. Stern--For so long, he seemed to be so far ahead of the curve but now seems to be presiding over the end of the partnership between owners and players.

Everything in the ‘90s has become adversarial and looks like the next century will start that way, or as agent Steve Kauffman put it recently:

“The thing people don’t understand, the union feels like it’s getting messed over. Next time, it’s going to be a holy war. You’ll have decertification, you’ll have strike funds, you’ll have all that kind of stuff.”

Hunter has recently conceded that he’ll give Stern his cap on top salaries. Stern probably could have gotten it two weeks ago--before things really got nasty--if only he hadn’t presented an entire grocery list, including the “timing proposal,” which he has reportedly dropped.

Knick boss Dave Checketts, a close Stern ally, said that baseball’s real mistake was returning to play before getting what it needed from the union. The union assumed he was speaking for Stern, and it was probably right.

Stern has looked recently like a man determined to fight to the end, to obtain the “new paradigm” he had convinced himself he needed.

3. Jeff Kessler--The union counsel is its leading hawk, a firebrand ideologue, constantly warring with his personal project, Stern.

Kessler lost his gig in the early ‘90s when then-director Charles Grantham took the union’s business to another New York law firm. However, Grantham was himself pushed out--either for expense account problems or appearing too conciliatory toward the league, depending on whom you believe.

Guess who was back on the union’s doorstep faster than Roadrunner twanging to a halt in front of Wile E. Coyote?

Kessler returned to help Falk in the failed decertification drive in ’95. Within months, he was rehired as union counsel, seeming to signal a contentious new day, which has certainly arrived.

4. Hunter--A newcomer with no basketball background, the union’s director is widely castigated by management and even some dovish agents.

In person, however, he comes off as smart, pragmatic and cocky enough to cut a deal. He has seemed to keep the union focused on making a deal, rather than decertifying to file an antitrust suit. However, he seemed to go with the flow and to accept the players’ paranoia about management. As director, he must take responsibility for the two “did-we-agree-to-that-we-didn’t-mean-to” incidents that infuriated the league and set the process back by weeks or months.

5. The other agents--Santa Monica-based Arn Tellem started off sounding pragmatic but soon fell in line behind Falk.

The other agents--even the ones with low-end client lists--fell in behind them. The result was the effective disenfranchisement of the majority of the union, which actually needed the money, as opposed to the stars, who could kiss off a few million.

6. Patrick Ewing--No one can say he isn’t acting selflessly, since his fortune is secure, but his shyness and aloofness made him a curious choice for union president and an unconvincing spokesman.

7. Mourning--You can’t really call him a disappointment. Who would have thought his warrior mentality would come in handy in a situation calling for restraint, tact and compromise in the first place?

He takes too much heat on the floor, where he’s a good player with a huge heart. He’s lost in this context, where his spewing rhetoric sometimes gets too much even for fellow stars.

Last week, in the desperate attempt to explain the UNICEF vs. needy-players embarrassment (which the Falkies finally abandoned, promising all proceeds to charity), Mourning tried to explain why players were deserving.

“Owners, they can own their teams until they’re 80 or 90 and then they can pass them on down to their kids,” he said. “We’re trying to make as much money as we can in a short period of time.”

Said another player, finally: “Zo, that’s why they call them owners.”

It has been a joke from the beginning. It just hasn’t been funny.

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NBA Lockout / Day 171

A look at the NBA lockout through Thursday:

Total days of season missed: 45.

* Games lost Thursday: 4.

* Total games lost: 310.

* Earliest estimated date season can start: Jan. 22.

* Negotiations: Nothing scheduled.

* Projected player salary losses (through Jan. 22): $480 million.

* Today’s best canceled game: Lakers at Minnesota. Shaq and Kobe against Kevin and Stephon on TNT.

* Quote of the day: “I urge you to focus on the extent of the compromises the owners have made from their initial bargaining demands.”--Commissioner David Stern in a nine-page letter mailed to all NBA players.