At Least Game Didn’t Go South

What can I say about the All-Star game except ... whew, survived another one!

It was close too. It was already bad enough with its nothing-exceeds-like-excess motif before it hit Atlanta, which was apparently bent on doing the same thing for this event it did for the 1996 Summer Olympics.

Once again, the infrastructure buckled. The bus system was shaky, giving rise to a common joke: All those drivers they imported in ‘96, who didn’t know where they were going, never found their way home and were still driving aimlessly around.

Not that buses could go anywhere with the streets gridlocked. This didn’t seem to surprise the organizers, who slipped maps of downtown with a picture of the local team’s mascot, Harry the Hawk, under hotel room doors, advising everyone:

“The Hawk says ... ‘WALK TO IT’ ”

Thousands of fans came only for the parties, which were also jammed. Happily, there were only minor breaches of the peace, as at the NBA Players Assn. affair, where Nick Van Exel wound up getting handcuffed, although he was released with no charges filed.

Said Van Exel’s Dallas teammate, Dirk Nowitzki: “I don’t know what happened. He was hanging with his boys and the next thing you know, he was in handcuffs.”

Van Exel’s pal, Houston’s James Posey, said the problem started when President Clinton’s security team manned the doors and refused to let the whole Posey-Van Exel group enter together.

However, Indiana’s oft-disciplined Ron Artest was not involved, as first reported. The Pacers, weary of the flak they’ve been getting, even issued a release, with President Donnie Walsh stating:

“Ron Artest was reported to have been involved in an altercation at a party in Atlanta during All-Star weekend. Ron spent the weekend at Disney World with his family enjoying the break.”

Meanwhile, the press room phones went out Saturday because of a Philips Arena switchboard problem, NBA officials said. Then they crashed again Sunday because of an outside problem with the phone company, NBA officials said.

It’s hard to explain how a city can combine such a vibrant image (it beat out Athens, the birthplace of the Olympics, for the 100-year anniversary, after all, or maybe it just outbid Athens) with such a low level of performance.

Maybe it takes on too much. There was also a flower show in town, a rodeo and, smaller but more publicized, the “World Famous Players’ Ball.” Of course, when the heat came down and protesters circled, the Players’ local host insisted it wasn’t really for pimps, as advertised, merely people who dressed like them with flamboyant displays of fur and leather.

In any case, it wasn’t only the streets, hotels and clubs that were jammed. Four local malls closed Saturday when they became dangerously packed and some stayed closed Sunday.

Nevertheless, the game (remember it?) turned out to be good and, despite being the first consigned to cable TV, drew a boffo rating, for which TNT immediately began congratulating itself.

“TNT turned a basketball game into an event,” TNT’s Steve Koonin crowed to the Hollywood Reporter, “and Americans love to watch television events. We created appointment television....”

Yeah, right. The genius count at TNT being what it is, it’s fortunate that the event is still what counts.

When all the hype is over, people are discerning enough to figure out what’s compelling -- as this was with Michael Jordan’s farewell and a big finish -- and what’s not. “Monday Night Football,” the 800-pound gorilla of the biz, just brought in John Madden, the game’s most respected commentator, and posted record-low ratings because too many of the games were turkeys.

Amazingly, no matter how bad the weekend gets, you always learn something:

* The joint announcement that the NBA and the players’ union will begin talking about an extension two years early suggests lasting labor peace is at hand.

Of course, both sides immediately withdrew to defensive positions, mewing about all the changes they needed, but you can’t expect too much from lawyers who’ve been posturing so long, they don’t even know they’re doing it.

They now seem tacitly agreed on using the current agreement as the framework for a new one, as it seems to work for both.

There’s competitive balance, with major powers in Sacramento, San Antonio and Indianapolis. Stars get $75 million-$100 million deals. Veteran journeymen get $1-million

minimums. The escrow tax will get the owners up to the 49% they contracted for and the luxury tax is starting to bite, which will level

costs.

Meanwhile, baseball, also eager to avoid a work stoppage, had to swallow a deal offering token relief.

The New York Yankees screamed it was aimed at them, announced massive cost-cutting and ran their payroll back up to $170 million by beating everyone to all the best free agents between the Bronx and Tokyo.

* Despite the continuing challenge of its transition in a weak economy, the NBA is in OK shape.

From the zenith, an 18.7 TV rating in Jordan’s last title run, the Finals fell to last spring’s 10.2 but are still within hailing distance of the World Series, the No. 2 event on the calendar, which got an 11.9 for the Angels-San Francisco Giants seven-gamer.

In 1991, when Jordan’s Chicago Bulls won their first title, starting the decade-long ratings ramp-up, the NBA Finals got a 15.3

* Leaving out the ongoing marketing riot, the NBA is still arguably the best-run league.

Commissioner David Stern reaps a whirlwind of bad publicity when he slaps down one of his wackos, but he has cleaned up the game. Players are now suspended for missed jabs, and thought-crime (even thinking of throwing a punch) might be next. It’s laughable to compare a modern team like the Pacers to the Bad Boy Detroit Pistons or Pat Riley’s New York Knicks, who wreaked actual havoc as recently as the mid-’90s.

It’s not that Stern can’t mess up (try Charlotte, expansion capital of the NBA), but in this league, unlike the others, you never have to ask who’s in charge, or if anyone is.

* Of course, there’s the NBA marketing push, which seems to exist to answer the questions, “What’s wrong with us?” and “Can it be fixed by this weekend?”

All of the glitz crystallizes in this event (the playoffs are mercifully about basketball) so that, even as it endeavored to celebrate its history, according to its “retro” theme, it was hard to tell who was putting it on, the NBA or MTV.

This leads to many new juxtapositions, as at Stern’s news conference when he sent best wishes to Deputy Commissioner Russ Granik, recuperating from surgery, and Players Assn. director Billy Hunter chimed in, saying he wished Granik could attend the union’s party that night.

“Yeah,” Stern said, “Russ will really miss Ludacris.”

Ludacris is a rap act, which is big in the NBA these days, along with everything else on the pop spectrum, from the Rolling Stones to Justin Timberlake.

They even do a Frank Sinatra bit, perhaps because someone noted that with the price of their tickets, the desired demographic is closer to the Big Band Era than Snoop Dogg (who was in town, both as NBA fan and organizer of the Players’ Ball.)

The frenzy culminated in a monument to overproduction that turned Jordan’s farewell into a Vegas lounge act, featuring, not Jordan, but Mariah Carey in a gown that was so captivating, TNT stayed on her as she sang, although her lyrics were keyed to the video tribute to MJ that was running, all but unnoticed, on the small screens behind her.

Does anyone remember the old axiom, “Less is more?” These days in the NBA, it’s “More is not enough.”

Phoenix Sun President Rick Welts, who headed NBA marketing when it reinvented the business in the ‘80s, recently told Sports Business Daily the most important thing he learned:

“It’s about the game. At the end of the day, we could be the smartest marketers or the most brilliant public relations people, but if the fan doesn’t connect with what is going on on the court, or if anything we do detracts from their enjoyment of the game, then we’d probably feel a bit too self-important and we probably lost track of the real reason people enjoy sports.”

Next year, the game is at Staples Center. Plan your vacations accordingly.