After Long Introduction, Time to Hand Out Awards

What can we say, other than what we always do at this point of the season: Thank heaven that’s over!

Six months is a long time for a warmup, and it’s not easy to market, either, as David Stern learned, this season, which turned out to be even more downbeat than last year’s post-lockout 50-game campaign.

Could be a lesson there, not that it would ever be acknowledged, since it affects the GNP (Gross NBA Product): Maybe the season is too darn long.

Of course, all your heroes had to endure it, allowing us to present our annual picks and pans:

Most Valuable Player--Shaquille O’Neal, Lakers. No one else was close.

All-NBA--O’Neal, Tim Duncan of San Antonio, Kevin Garnett of Minnesota, Gary Payton of Seattle and Allen Iverson of Philadelphia. Iverson edges the Lakers’ Kobe Bryant on sheer impact, but at the level Bryant has played for the last three months, he’s the best all-around shooting guard in the game by a mile.

Coach of the year--Phil Jackson, Lakers. Orlando’s Doc Rivers was close, making a storybook run at the playoffs with nobodies. Nevertheless, the hardest thing is not lifting a team into respectability but booting it to greatness (regular-season variety, anyway).

Rookie of the year--Elton Brand, Chicago. Edges Steve Francis, Houston, and Lamar Odom, Clippers, in that order. Francis and Odom may turn out to be better, but you’ve got to love Brand, who has a Karl Malone work ethic, a superstar’s confidence and doesn’t realize he’s too short. Francis has a big head and mouth and an even bigger upside. Odom has the most game but has to learn to deal with the Clipper blues.

Rookie dud--Baron Davis, Charlotte. The Hornets decided they needed someone better than David Wesley, then played Wesley most of the time. Davis averaged 5.9 points and 3.8 assists. Instead, they could have taken Odom.

Defensive player--Garnett. What a gamer this guy is. He guards everyone from big point guards like Jason Kidd to big power forwards like Duncan. At 23, Garnett already is the best all-around 7-footer the game has ever seen.

Sixth man--Cuttino Mobley, Houston. Second-year No. 2 pick, a ball of energy who averaged 16 points. Also a free agent.

Executive of the year--Toronto General Manager Glen Grunwald. Once Isiah Thomas’ lowly assistant, he inherited only rubble when Thomas bailed, drafted Vince Carter, traded for Charles Oakley and Antonio Davis and turned the program around.

Crummy executive of the year (Donald T. Sterling Award)--Who else but Donald T. Sterling? No one else was close.

Crummy exec, honorable mention: Rick Pitino, Boston, although he claims someone else runs things. His Celtics look more like a sitcom than a team. . . . Stern and NBC head Dick Ebersol or whoever’s running this league, for the stupid microphone flap that showed how panicky they are about falling ratings, which probably had more to do with Tiger Woods. . . . Whatever Staples Center exec is in charge of the system for selling playoff ticket sales to the fans. If they had studio heads belting each other over the head with their bottles of water, I bet Staples would make sure it got it right, and it wouldn’t make them show up at 7 a.m., either.

Executive comeback of the year--Jerry Buss, Lakers. Last season, he brought in Dennis Rodman. This season, Jackson.

Most improved--Jalen Rose, Indiana. Now the Pacers’ leading scorer. Has learned to shoot from distance and at 6-8, he can run the point too. Also, a free agent.

Back from the dead--Derrick Coleman, Charlotte. His alarm clock went off after a six-year nap.

Best achievement in weight gain--Shawn Kemp, Cleveland. He can still play some, but he used to be a greyhound and highlight-reel dunker. Now he’s a water buffalo.

Most overpriced--Vin Baker, Seattle. Baker, who also went on a see-food diet last season, was rewarded with an $87-million contract anyway but never recovered his form. His father, a minister, moved to Seattle to be with him and Baker went to counseling for depression. Doesn’t sound much like the old days when a player was expected to tape it up and take two aspirin, does it?

Most colorful language by the voices in his head--Rasheed Wallace, Portland. Set a record with 38 technical fouls, more than twice the total of runner-up Payton.

My worst calls (the Loretta Summers Heisler Award, named for my wife, who can list another 1,000)--Sneering at Bull General Manager Jerry Krause for drafting Brand. Wasting a column on weak Grant Hill-to-Lakers speculation. Touting Magic Johnson for the mythical post of Clipper Strong Man (when will I ever learn?).

FACES AND FIGURES

There you go again: Iverson, sounding less than overjoyed at 76er Coach Larry Brown’s extension that matches the term of his own contract: “We’ll see. I don’t know. I guess they feel like it can work. By them signing him to a long deal, they feel it can work. Because they had already signed me for six years. I mean, I don’t have no choice but to make it work. This is my home. This is my team. I’m not going to get run out of here by anybody.” . . . His timing could be better, but: Tim Hardaway, an upcoming free agent who has had a strained relationship with Pat Riley in recent seasons, says he’s “quite sure” he’ll test the market. Having signed a modest $5-million-a-year deal last time, he says if he stays, he’d like the Heat to do “what New York did for Patrick Ewing, what Chicago did for Michael Jordan.”

Miami, which couldn’t even sell out its first playoff game against the Knicks last year, with about

2 million ex-New Yorkers living in the area, had thousands of tickets available for the start of its series with the Pistons. Team staffers handed out freebies to anyone they saw on the street wearing Heat gear. Next: Anyone wearing anything?

Indiana’s Rik Smits is expected to retire after averaging 10.9 points, his lowest in eight seasons. The tipoff on the Pacers? They still need him. “He’s the only guy we have who can command a double-team,” says team President Donnie Walsh, “and that hasn’t changed this year.” . . . Milwaukee’s George Karl, losing it, ripped Orlando General Manager John Gabriel for plotting to get rid of some of his no-name players, was called “unprofessional” by Rivers and then went after him too. “Anybody who uses words like professional, unprofessional, respect, disrespect is dangerous because those are words of assassination,” said Karl. And Karl, before the start of the Indiana series: “I’m going to celebrate for a couple of days before I make some smart-ass comment about Indiana and get them stirred up like the Orlando fans.”

Mr. Self-Critic: Kemp, promising to come in next season skinny enough to walk through a door without turning sideways: ‘I’m not kidding myself that because I had a couple of nice games at the end it was a good year. It’s not. I was inconsistent all year. I’ve got to come back and I won’t be happy until I change. I hate to see that stuff written about me. Nothing like that is going to be said next year.”. . . Clip and save: Detroit’s Jerry Stackhouse, on the Pistons’ recent playoff woes: “When I look back at this team’s playoff history and I see how they kept getting bounced out of the playoffs after the first round--well, all I can think is, I wasn’t here and maybe that’s why.”

Danny Ainge, Charles Barkley’s teammate in Phoenix, on teammates’ attempts to whip Barkley into shape on an Eastern swing: “Charles met with us the first day and we had a good 45-minute workout in the swimming pool. It was exhausting, but it felt great. The next day, Charles said the water was too cold and decided not to work out. He got in the Jacuzzi, he ordered about a six-pack of beer and sat there and drank and watched us work out. He continued to do that for the rest of the road trip, to not work out with Frank [Johnson] and I and [conditioning coach] Robin Pound. The last game of the trip was in Orlando. Charles had a great game on national TV. In his postgame interview, he thanked Robin Pound for working him so hard and getting him in shape. From that time on, we called it the Charles Barkley Triathlon Workout--steam, sauna and the Jacuzzi.”