Inaugural WNBA All-Star Game a Real Teen Dream

Should 14-year-old girls rule the world?

They’re running the WNBA, and that’s as it should be, say the people who created the three-year-old women’s pro basketball league which tonight plays its first All-Star game at Madison Square Garden.

In other words, if you’re 14, female and your Mom and Dad keep buying you WNBA tickets and they get you to the game on time, you get to vote for whoever you want.

Never mind that two players having most-valuable-player-type seasons, Sacramento’s Yolanda Griffith and Utah’s Natalie Williams, didn’t receive enough votes to be starters tonight.

And never mind that Williams, who’s only averaging 19.8 points and 10.2 rebounds a game, got fewer votes than . . . Kate Starbird? Right. Starbird, riding the pine at Sacramento, got 13,083 votes, Williams 11,868.

And never mind that New York’s Rebecca Lobo blew out her knee 43 seconds into the opening game and is out for the year. She got 38,000 votes anyway.

Well, you get the idea.

It’s silly time in New York.

And a good chance to see who actually attends WNBA games.

WNBA crowds bear no resemblance to NBA crowds. No Generation Xers, no gold chains at courtside in this league. No hip guys in shades, shuffling along in loafers with no socks.

Instead, there are teen girls, and they’ll come bearing face paint and placards. Ever hear 10,000 young girls scream simultaneously? In games at the league’s two attendance leaders, Washington and New York, moms, grandmas, aunts or big sisters bring ‘em in on the subway, by the thousand.

They fuel the engine driving this enterprise, and if they want to get silly with their all-star ballots, let ‘em.

Still, it remains troublesome to many that a world-class talent like Griffith, the former Long Beach StingRay who arrived from the ABL and helped elevate her team immediately from an 8-22 season last season to a Western Conference contender (10-5) this season, will sit during the opening tipoff and watch New York’s Kym Hampton start in the post.

The same goes, some say, for Phoenix’s Michele Timms, starting over Sacramento’s Ticha Penicheiro. Timms averages two fewer assists a game than Penicheiro, who is the league leader.

The top vote-getters by position earned starting assignments, with the Eastern and Western conference coaches completing the rosters.

Once Penicheiro does get in the game, her ballhandling wizardry could steal what’s expected to be a run-and-gun show.

At the Tuesday news conferences, it remained for a rookie, Washington’s Chamique Holdsclaw, to tell it like it is at any sport’s all-star game.

“I’ve played in a ton of all-star games throughout my career, and not too much defense has been played in any of them,” she said.

“Everyone wants to prove a point. But it’ll be fun, playing in my hometown [she grew up in Queens], before family and friends.”

Sandy Brondello, the Australian guard representing the Detroit Shock, hopes for a show worthy of comparison to a recent Rose Bowl event.

“This is great for women’s basketball,” she said.

“Look at the U.S. women’s soccer team. That’s fabulous. It’s great for all women’s sports.”