BEST OF BOTH WORLDS

Together at last, gathered on the same launch pad.

The WNBA, finally able to say that it has America’s--and the world’s--best female basketball players, lifts off with its third season Thursday.

The two hours it took May 4 to draft 35 players from the defunct American Basketball League represented a historic turning point in the women’s pro game.

In a twinkling, instead of being split, the talent in the women’s game was all under the same tent.

And although some WNBA teams are immeasurably better than last season, one constant remains:

The Houston Comets are No. 1.

They too added ABL and international superstars, and in their case to a roster that already has won the first two WNBA championships, gone 45-13 in two regular seasons and is led by two-time league most valuable player Cynthia Cooper.

About the same time, the league also put labor unrest, simmering for two summers, on the back burner. The WNBA and the players’ union signed off on a four-year agreement that takes veterans’ minimum salaries from $30,000 this summer to $40,000 in 2002.

Another element this season: Each team is limited to three ABL players, except for expansion clubs Orlando and Minnesota, which can have five. Beginning next season, there will be no restrictions.

So expectations have never been higher at NBA-WNBA offices in New York.

TV ratings remained good last season. Overall attendance was up dramatically too, although attendance problems dogged the Sacramento, Los Angeles, Utah and Charlotte franchises.

NBC ratings for WNBA games last summer were down slightly, from 2.0 in 1997 to 1.6, a figure skewed a bit by a record rating for the 1997 New York-Los Angeles opening game.

But for the second consecutive season, the WNBA’s ratings were higher than those of the NHL and Major League Soccer.

The 1998 attendance ran from very good to very bad. Washington, for instance, averaged 15,910. And with a vastly improved team led by Chamique Holdsclaw, the Mystic could move up to sellouts in 20,674-seat MCI Center.

Phoenix, New York, Houston, Detroit and Cleveland all averaged more than 10,000.

But here’s the downside: Last August, when Houston played at Charlotte in an Eastern Conference playoff game at 24,042-seat Charlotte Coliseum, the bottom bowl was about one-fifth full, yet the Sting announced a crowd of 6,087.

Afterward, WNBA President Val Ackerman wore a long face.

“When I look at our attendance in Washington, New York and Phoenix, I feel great about what we’re doing,” she said. “Then I look at Charlotte, Utah and Sacramento and see how far we really have to go.”

The WNBA average last summer was 10,869, up 12% from 1997. There were 73 10,000-plus crowds--up from 41 in ‘97--and 10 of more than 17,000.

Now, the league will learn what star power can do for attendance trouble spots:

* In Salt Lake City, can Natalie Williams and Debbie Black lift the Utah Starzz over their 1998 average of 8,104?

* In Sacramento, can Yolanda Griffith and Kate Starbird elevate the Monarchs over the 6,578 they drew last summer?

* In Charlotte, what will Dawn Staley and Stephanie McCarty do for turnstile RPMs?

* And in Los Angeles, team President Johnny Buss hopes DeLisha Milton, Clarisse Machanguana, Ukari Figgs and La’Keshia Frett, teamed with Lisa Leslie, will boost attendance.

Two new wrinkles:

* The playoffs have been expanded. The Nos. 2 and 3 teams in each conference will meet in one game, the winners advancing to play the conference champions in best-of-three playoffs. The conference champions will meet for the league championship in another best-of-three series.

* The league will hold its first All-Star game July 14 at New York’s Madison Square Garden.

The TV carriers are again NBC, with 11 Saturday games, beginning this weekend; ESPN, with nine Monday/Tuesday games, beginning Monday, and Lifetime, with 11 Thursday/Friday games, beginning with the opener Thursday, Houston at Orlando.

It’s a 32-game regular-season schedule, up from 30 last summer, with each team playing 16 games at home, 16 on the road. Each team will play conference opponents four times each, nonconference opponents twice each. Including playoffs, the season will end no later than Sept. 5.

The league will grow from 12 to 16 teams next summer, with expansion teams set for Seattle, Portland, Indianapolis and Miami.