Sure, Now Everyone Thinks About Fans

Antagonism? What antagonism?

The members of the new, harmonious, not to mention fan-friendlier NBA fell into each others’ arms Thursday, as the league’s board of governors voted, 29-0, to ratify the deal with the players.

Commissioner David Stern, who was invited by union director Billy Hunter to address the players Wednesday, invited Hunter to address the owners. Plans were announced to set up a player-owner committee and to involve union officials in disciplinary decisions, which might keep them busy because there have been so many.

“We’re glad this is over,” said Hunter, appearing with Stern at a news conference. “Our players are anxious to get back and play.

“We’re anxious to join hands with David and Russ [Granik, deputy commissioner] and the owners of the 29 teams to really create a strong and familial relationship, one that we think is going to take the NBA to another level, one that we think will bring back those fans.

“Not only are you going to see an improved game, but particularly our players’ interface with the fans, I think is going to be new, I think it’s going to be somewhat healthy and refreshing for professional basketball.”

Professional basketball could use it. The fans’ reaction to missing two months was a long nationwide yawn. However, Stern maintains he has seen surveys that--”appropriately read”--indicate the fans are still out there . . . somewhere.

“We have some winning back of fans to do, and we’re going to do it,” Stern said.

So this season’s, uh, unique two-game exhibition season will be played with no admission charge. Fans will be allowed into one intrasquad scrimmage for free. Next season, teams will put 500 $10 tickets aside for sale just before game time to make it more affordable for families.

All details are pending. First, the agreement must be typed into a final draft, and the parties must sign off.

(They opened the 1995-96 season before doing this, then argued about what they’d agreed to until the next summer, when Stern imposed a lockout. This time, he’s taking no chances.)

This “memorializing” of the contract may be done in four or five days. At the outside, the parties expect to finish by Jan. 18.

The next day, a schedule will be released (plans are for 50 games, mostly against conference foes, starting Feb. 5), training camps will open and teams can start negotiating with almost 200 free agents, including Scottie Pippen, Tom Gugliotta, Antonio McDyess, Rick Fox, Loy Vaught, Charles Barkley, Dennis Rodman . . . and Michael Jordan.

(Jordan, of course, might or might not return. He seemed to turn his back on the negotiating process--during this meeting, he was at a resort in the Bahamas, playing high-stakes blackjack--prompting speculation he’ll retire.)

Starting Monday, players will be allowed to work out at team facilities, with trainers and strength coaches.

Coaches aren’t supposed to work with players, but the facilities have basketball courts, so the guys can run their own scrimmages and drills, as the Indiana Pacers have been doing on their own for months.

Stern and Hunter issued a joint press release, thanking everyone. Hunter specifically praised union president Patrick Ewing. However, Ewing acknowledges Hunter asked him to sit out the final negotiating session with Stern.

“Maybe that’s what they thought they needed to get the deal done,” Ewing said. “Maybe they thought I was too strong.”

Ewing was criticized for his unbending stance, but, whatever you thought of his positions, there was no doubt he was someone with nothing to gain or lose personally, who has signed his last contract, who gave up a lot of time and money for what he thought was right.

Hunter was criticized for not being able to make a deal, or for signing an owners deal, but his task was the most thankless of all. Hired by the union hawks to be a wartime director, hemmed in by the hawks and their clients on the negotiating committee, he finally carved out enough room to deliver the proposal that became the basis for the final compromise. The deal Hunter did make, as Stern noted, will raise the average player’s salary to more than $5 million a year by its end.

David Falk took a lot of heat but deserved his.

Late Tuesday, he was lamenting to friends that this deal was bad for agents, that he might quit the business and concentrate on marketing, instead. This suggests the worst suspicions one might have entertained--that this man was toying with the lives and livelihoods of hundreds for his own selfish reasons--were right on.

In the weird ground where sports and labor intersect, all’s well that ends, and the sooner, the better.