All-Stars and All-Trades Week

It’s a new era. These days, the week after the All-Star game is more entertaining than the game.

I was going to do my eagerly awaited annual All-Star retrospective before last week’s blizzard of trades, in which almost 10% of the league’s players changed teams.

Therefore, I’ll give you the short version, before moving on to the news:

All-Star game: To quote Dahlia, Erika Gonzalez and Penny Parker, who write a celebrity-gazing column in the Rocky Mountain News called Full Party Press: “Game, what game?”

It may be hard to remember but there actually used to be a game people watched, averaging an 11.5 rating between 1992 and 1998.

Now it’s a weekend, featuring bling (jewelry), celebrity-hosted parties (parties at which there’s a remote chance the celebrity will show) and Hummers (armored personnel carriers, redesigned for the consumer market.)

Wretched excess: Yes.

Michael Payne, owner of Rise, the club where Michael Jordan actually appeared, said he bought $15,000 worth of cigars for Jordan’s personal humidor, which was flown to town in a crate.

Unfortunately, the cigars were stolen, obliging Payne to buy more. Yet to be determined is whether the thieves knew what the stogies were worth or if they just fired up $15K worth of the rarest leaf.

Moral of the story: Last season’s game in Los Angeles showed the Lakers were the league. Now the league has moved on.

A year ago, NBA officials watched in dismay as the press corps threw itself into the Shaquille O’Neal-Kobe Bryant soap opera, to the exclusion of all the worthy causes the league was trying to get exposure for.

Now the Lakers are off the radar, even if it took them and everyone else a while to get it. ESPN and TNT put as many of their games on the national TV schedule as before and the drop-off in their ratings is chiefly due to the drop in those games.

State of the league: It may be surprising, after the Detroit brawl, amid all the debate about whether a hip-hop league can market in the red states, but the NBA is in good shape.

The present bargaining agreement works so well, both sides say they’re ready to make a deal. If it happens, it will herald the return of the old labor peace David Stern used to brag about before the wars of the ‘90s.

The commissioner has gotten scant credit in the perfect storm that followed Jordan’s 1999 retirement, but he has sailed his little boat through the maelstrom as few could have done.

When Stern saw trouble coming in 1998, he beat the players to the punch, locking them out before the season so they couldn’t threaten the all-important postseason without missing a whole year’s pay first. He wound up with the cost controls he needed, even if he wasn’t confident of it at the time.

In contrast, baseball let its players control the timing in 1994, lost its postseason and failed to get what it needed in the new agreement the next spring. Now it’s a rich-get-richer world with the Yankee payroll passing $200 million. When there’s concern that a mega-market team like the Dodgers, who draw 3 million annually, has the wherewithal to compete, there’s a problem.

The same year, the NHL lost half a season and then failed to get what it needed in the new deal. That led to even greater losses and this season’s disaster.

Nicest moment: Bryant and O’Neal embracing each other. No, really.

Before the game, they were the only two players not to greet each other. However, they ran into each other outside the interview room. Bryant said, “What’s up, big fella?” and O’Neal reciprocated. Kobe kept going, expecting no more than a perfunctory greeting, but Shaq reached out and patted him on the back.

“It was a pretty warm moment,” said Roland Lazenby, one of Bryant’s biographers, who was there. “I was surprised by it.”

Peace, it’s wonderful, even if it lasts only a week or two.

Now to Reconfigure

the Entire League

On Wednesday, the Sacramento Kings struck out boldly in a new direction (try: south). By the time the smoke cleared, there had been 11 deals relocating 35 players whose combined contracts would rival the GNP of a small country.

Let’s divide it up this way:

MADE OUT LIKE BANDITS:

Philadelphia -- My bet is the 76ers just happened to be on the phone with the Sacramento people when the word came from owners Joe and Gavin Maloof to take whatever they could get for Chris Webber.

Allen Iverson, who had been signaling he wanted out, is enchanted. Webber will be greeted like a conquering hero. If they don’t win their awful division, someone will have some explaining to do.

Golden State -- My bet is the Warriors just happened to be on the phone with the Hornet people when the word came down to take whatever they could get for Baron Davis.

Of course, Davis, who didn’t miss a game his first three seasons and sat out 47 in the two after he got his long-term contract, will have to go back to being Baron Davis.

San Antonio -- Gregg Popovich and R.C. Buford, still on a roll, get Nazr Muhammad, a usable young big man, from the Knicks. Best of all, they get rid of Malik Rose, who was deep in the doghouse with a contract that had four more years on it, worth $26 million.

The NBA’s best team now has a $47-million payroll, with Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili and Rasho Nesterovic signed through 2009 and no more than $58 million on the books in any of those seasons.

MADE OUT:

Houston -- The Rockets, who were old and slow when the season started, have moved out half their roster and are still looking for shooters, like Mike James, whom they just got, to complement Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady.

Cleveland -- The Cavaliers got Celtic guard Jiri Welsch, flying beneath the radar, but a nice piece.

Dallas -- Don Nelson gets Keith Van Horn, another shooter, knowing his only chance in the playoffs is to put up a massive fireworks show. Van Horn’s contract is up in 2006, so they can move him if they want to.

Miami -- Worried about in-and-out Eddie Jones and Wesley Person, the Heat gets Steve Smith, who doesn’t have a lot left but can still shoot.

WHATEVER:

Boston -- My bet is the Celtic owners went nuts when their division rivals, the 76ers, got Webber, and made GM Danny Ainge take back Antoine Walker.

Ainge disliked Walker’s three-point-launching, hip-shimmying game as a commentator and dumped him as soon as he took over. Ainge is trying to build for the future, but the owners may be worried about making the playoffs to sell tickets, no longer a given there.

Ainge is taking a pounding (Bob Ryan, Boston Globe: “Danny, I can’t defend you this time. You’re now officially on your own.”) However, this is only a low-cost rental, because Walker’s contract is expiring, unless he shows a lot and is willing to stay for half of what he’s getting. They may even get Gary Payton back, after sending him to Atlanta, where he’s expected to be cut.

New York -- My bet is the Knicks went nuts when the 76ers got Webber. Isiah Thomas was telling friends he wasn’t going to do anything but wound up acquiring two more undersized power forwards, Mo Taylor and Rose, to go with all the ones he had, plus two No. 1 picks that should be in the 20s.

Thomas, of course, is taking a pounding that makes Ainge’s look like applause.

Denver -- New Coach George Karl gets an energy guy, Eduardo Najera, for two he had no use for, Nikoloz Tskitishvili and Rodney White.

Atlanta -- Moving Walker and cutting Kenny Anderson wasn’t unusual. All the Hawks ever do is dump players to save cap space and play their young guys.

Charlotte -- They get Malik Allen. He’s OK, but this might not turn it around for them.

NICE KNOWING YOU:

Sacramento -- The Kings decided last summer to move Webber, who wasn’t the same after knee surgery, didn’t move the ball like Vlade Divac and didn’t look for Peja Stojakovic. Nevertheless, you don’t trade stars without paying for it.

Milwaukee -- The Bucks dumped $18 million of salary in James and Van Horn. They hope to use the money to re-sign free agent Michael Redd, who’s expected to get a big offer to go home from the Cavaliers. Good luck.

New Orleans -- The Hornets have been without Davis and Jamal Mashburn, who were sent away, for a while now. This just made it official.

Glenn Robinson, who went home when the 76ers told him he would be coming off the bench, is perfect here.