NOT SO HOT

Felipe Lopez is calling for the ball, Jelani McCoy is dribbling it, Ed O’Bannon is bumping bodies in the lane, Corey Benjamin and Charles O’Bannon are on the bench, and three guys in the third row are cheering.

The other 150 or so people littering the vast spaces of the Pyramid in Long Beach are watching quietly, as another fascinating night goes by in the bizarro basketball world of this year’s FILA Summer Pro League.

That was Monday. On Sunday, those same players faced a team that included J.R. Henderson, Toby Bailey, Austin Croshere, Miles Simon and Pat Garrity. Combined, there were 13 current or recently drafted NBA players on the two teams.

When 835 fans were in attendance.

Blue-chip players getting their summer work in, before empty stands. Did somebody say the fans were locked out too?

“Obviously, we’re disappointed,” said Gino Kwok, the summer league president. “I’m not going to hide anything. What can I hide? Look at the basketball talent out here. I’d have to be less than candid if I told you I wasn’t disappointed with our attendance.”

Welcome to the NBA lockout, Residual Effect No. 1.

When the NBA locked out its players last month, it meant that there could be no contact between players and their teams--and put the kibosh on short summer leagues that have been run by the New York Knicks and Utah Jazz, among others.

The only one left standing was the SPL, which is not run by the NBA and started play Saturday. But the lockout meant that the league was deprived of its highest-profile, most easily identifiable portion--the rookie squads fielded by the Lakers, Clippers and several other teams, made up of draft picks and young free agents and run by members of each team’s coaching staff.

Last year, the Del Harris-coached Laker entry, featuring Kobe Bryant and Derek Fisher, drew more than 2,000 each time it played.

“I don’t believe we’re getting as many good players as we should be getting,” said former longtime NBA assistant and scout Larry Creger, who serves as a consultant for the league and predicts that as the summer progresses, many more NBA players will find their way to the Pyramid and into games.

“But yet there are a lot of good players out there and the fans think there are no players with any ability at our games. We’ve had a couple of beautiful games. People think there’s nobody here. But I believe already we’ve seen 15 guys who’ll be in the NBA next year.”

This year, the SPL has shortened the season to 16 days, introduced several teams sponsored by NBA agents such as Arn Tellem (the O’Bannons, Lopez, etc.) and Leigh Steinberg (Garrity, Croshere, Bailey, Henderson), and welcomed the Harlem Globetrotters, who are fielding a team for serious competition for the first time in any kind of league.

Though lacking a huge Kobe Bryant name on any of the very fluid rosters, the league’s 14 teams include almost as many NBA players and prospects as seasons past--from Charles “Bo” Outlaw, who played in back-to-back games on Saturday, to Clipper free agent center Isaac Austin and Long Beach State product Bryon Russell (both of whom have yet to play).

For an established player such as Outlaw, skipping the summer league wasn’t an option, and when he’s not playing at the Pyramid, he’s as likely to be playing in one of the high-level afternoon pickup games at UCLA.

Former UCLA guard Darrick Martin, one of the chief organizers of the pickup games at the UCLA men’s gym (along with Mitchell Butler), said that lockout or no lockout, the NBA players who are serious about staying sharp know that they have to play in the summer.

Because of the lockout and the lack of other organized leagues, Martin says, the UCLA games have gotten crowded and extremely competitive--attracting the likes of Kenny Anderson, Magic Johnson, Bryant and Outlaw.

Meanwhile, Martin is a player-coach for the Tellem team in the summer league.

“Our whole focus is to stay in shape, not get hurt, and get some exercise,” Martin said. “Whether the fans come or not, we’ve got to do that. Whether we do it here or do it at another gym, where there’s no fans, it’s just pickup games. . . . This is just an arena for us to have a few fans and play under some normal situations with refs.”

Though NBA executives cannot have contact with their players, Laker General Manager Mitch Kupchak--who expected first-round pick Sam Jacobson to play in the league, though Jacobson hadn’t played as of Tuesday--said he expects to go to the Pyramid simply to watch the games and see how the players react to the officiating (by NBA trainees) and to banging with other NBA-caliber players.

“Personally, I think that league is the most well-run, attractive league in the country, of all the different venues,” Kupchak said. “This is one of the best--because of its location, the amount of talent that lives in this area, the way it’s run, the officials are NBA officials, games start on time, they end on time.”

Without the benefit of the NBA teams’ tutelage this summer, recently drafted players and other young free agents need a place to tune up against their peers, said Henderson, the former UCLA standout. And as the summer wanes, Henderson said many players are scrambling to find a roster spot on one of the summer league teams or are lining up at the UCLA men’s gym for some action.

“Man, it’s real hard,” Henderson said. “I know guys are asking, ‘You guys got open spots?’ I’ve already seen some guys just trickling around, just hanging around and trying to get on a team.

“[At the men’s gym] usually it’s just one court, maybe one team on the side. But all three courts are full now, it’s packed in there. It’s been kind of wild. Usually you could just walk in . . . get picked up. Now you’ve got to be chosen. Everyone on there is good, man.”

Charles O’Bannon, the former UCLA forward, said he received a letter from the Detroit Pistons warning him that his contract could be voided if he got hurt in the league.

“I do take that into consideration,” O’Bannon said, “but I do need my workouts. I need to play.”

And to have so many good and expensive players playing before such a sparse crowd?

“It’s not a concern of mine to have a huge crowd, because I’m not at my best right now and none of us are,” O’Bannon said. “I haven’t played with Ed for a while. To see him back out there, having fun, it’s great.”

Said former Fresno State point guard Rafer Alston: “Whoever loves basketball, they’ll be watching.”

Manny Jackson, the owner of the Globetrotters, said he has been toying with the idea of fielding a summer league team for a few years, and probably would have put this team in the league whether or not there was a lockout.

The stars of the Globetrotters aren’t playing in the league, and Jackson says the team, made up of about nine of the traveling Globetrotters and with add-ons like Outlaw, Clipper center Keith Closs and Alston, is just getting work in--not doing any showboating. The famous winning streak is not a factor and no confetti will be tossed into the crowd.

“Our goal is to be one of the top 10 basketball teams in the world, so they have to work on their basics,” Jackson said. “We save our showmanship for our showmen and our exhibition dribblers. You can’t hurt those. Those are jewels.”

And Jackson said his scouts comb the summer league for Globetrotter prospects.

“Bo Outlaw would be a perfect Harlem Globetrotter,” Jackson said. “He’d be Goose Tatum, Meadowlark Lemon . . . all wrapped into one. Bo would be wonderful. I’ve been tracking him for four or five years, and he knows it too. I tell him all the time, ‘I want to steal you from the NBA one of these days.’ He’s wasting his time out there in the NBA. He’d be an incredible celebrity.”