AFTER 191--DAY LOCKOUT, THE NBA IS...Back in Business

A funny thing happened on the way into the abyss . . .

It’s a little hard to describe the last six months in a few words--a Lawyers’ Posture-a-thon? The Propaganda Olympics?--but thank heaven, it’s over.

The amazing thing is, it was worth it.

The price was high--how is the NBA going to sell the first two months to fans who just discovered how dispensable November and December were?--but the league had a dysfunctional, star-toadying, small-market-crushing deal and now it’s much better.

Of course, this deal was sitting there, waiting for the various barristers to stop messing with each other long enough to concede the obvious. They did so, only at the last moment, with the aid of a local tandem, Laker star Shaquille O’Neal and his agent, Leonard Armato.

In numbers, Shaq lost out Wednesday, but in stature, he grew another foot or seven.

Next summer’s free agency now means nothing to him, since he’s already over the new cap. Generosity may be easier after you bank your first $100 million, but, alone among the superstars, O’Neal gave himself up, freeing Armato, who appreciated the league’s role in making Shaq (and Leonard) all the money, to play mediator.

Which Armato did, suffering the poisoned arrows of the combatants’ paranoia, getting tabbed as a “mole” by fellow agents, failing in every attempt until he got the sides together one last time, late Tuesday night.

“What people don’t really understand about me, if I had $120,000 or if I had $120 million, I’m still going to be the same Shaquille O’Neal, on and off the court,” O’Neal said later in a suite in the Trump International.

“I’m truly blessed to be playing a sport that I love and I would never, ever complain about money. I’m playing for the team of my dreams. I’ve got Jerry West. If Jerry West said, ‘Our team’s going bankrupt this year, we can’t pay you,’ I’d still play. . . .

“The deal is good for the mass and I just want to play ball, I think it could have been dealt with a long time ago. I want to thank David Falk and I want to thank Leonard Armato--the problem and the fixer.”

It took so long to arrive at the obvious conclusion because Falk waged a guerrilla campaign on behalf of the $100-million club, with union counsel Jeffrey Kessler and Arn Tellem, Kobe Bryant’s Santa Monica-based agent, capturing the union’s negotiating committee and paralyzing the new director, Billy Hunter.

Tellem is bright, tenacious and an ideologue who would have liked to push the fight another day to call Stern’s bluff, but when it was over, he was here, congratulating Stern, carping about the terms to be sure, but willing to accept the deal.

Kessler, another hard-edged sharpie, delighted in playing cobra-and-mongoose with his personal nemesis, Stern, and that had even union loyalists calling for his benching from the negotiating team. But at the end, Kessler was in the NBA offices with Hunter and Stern, cutting the final deal.

Meanwhile, Falk was nowhere to be seen.

His clients, Patrick Ewing, Alonzo Mourning and Dikembe Mutombo, the Georgetown Chorus, dominated the negotiating committee, but Tuesday, with the league and union close on paper but far apart emotionally, there was an attempt to put Hunter and Stern together--but this time without Ewing, who had sat in on almost all other high-level talks.

There was a similar resistance movement growing among the members at large, who were to vote Wednesday. Sure of themselves, because they had run the other meetings, the Falkies expected to handle this one too, or as Ewing said of his constituents beforehand:

“We’re going to put it to the test, but we’re going to make sure they stand by their negotiating committee.”

Now, however, there were not only dissenters but leaders to rally around: Shaq, Hakeem Olajuwon, another Armato client; and the outspoken, independent Jayson Williams, whose running stand-up comedy makes him a local folk hero.

O’Neal, a dove who had bided his time in silence for two months, was done biding his time. As he told a friend at home, “I’m going back there and knock out Ewing and Mourning.”

It didn’t come to that--the deal was made before the players met so all they had to do was ratify it and start the celebration--but it might have. Well, not the knocking out, but the confrontation.

“I came here to play basketball,” Orlando’s Nick Anderson said. “I came here to voice my opinion about playing basketball. I was going to say I was ready to play and I’ve been ready for a long time. And many more than a majority felt that way. If there were 210 guys up there, I’d say at least 200 felt that way. It was a landslide. . . .

“If guys came up here today and weren’t voting for a deal, it would have been hell. It would have been an earthquake on the 25th floor.”

The players endorsed the deal, 179-5. The negotiating committee went for it, 19-0.

Let’s not do this again this century, huh?

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

The League

“I will say that I am elated that we will be playing basketball this season.” DAVID STERN, Commissioner

The Union

“Did we blink? I guess we both blinked.” BILLY HUNTER, Union director

The Players

“I want to thank David Falk and I want to thank Leonard Armato. . .the problem and the fixer.” Shaquille O’Neal, Lakers