Don’t sell Stern short

Is that all there is?

Fortunately for the NBA, it isn’t, even with TV ratings cratering for this joke of a Finals ... which you could see coming all season as Western powerhouses vied for the honor of walking over whichever 98-pound weakling made it out of the East.

This came after Stephen Jackson fired his gun to break up a fight outside a club; Sebastian Telfair had a $50,000 necklace ripped from his neck and was questioned by the NYPD in the subsequent shooting of rapper Fabolous; the Denver-New York brawl; the suspensions of Carmelo Anthony, Kobe Bryant, Amare Stoudemire and Joey Crawford; the lost All-Star weekend in Las Vegas; Kobe’s meltdown; and the battle over the basketball itself.

This wasn’t just a bad season, this was the Mother of All Bad Seasons.

Happily for the NBA, its reality proceeds along two tracks, which seem to have nothing to do with each other.

One is strung-out with Judge Dredd, a.k.a. David Stern, seemingly bent on single-handedly changing his players’ image and controlling their behavior from his New York office, where he monitors everyone via TV.

This enforces an uneasy peace but results in never-ending controversies that eclipse the “NBA Cares” spots designed to enhance the players’ image. Despite all the resources thrown into the campaign -- they even ran media buses to community events at the Finals -- I don’t think the prevailing image of an NBA player is a 6-8 guy on a roof with a hammer.

However, the other track is enviably prosperous with Stern, a marketing wizard, steering his embattled league through the storm to Fat City.

In a little-noticed development before Game 1, when only Stern could muse, “I think it’s a great time to be a fan of basketball and particularly the NBA at these Finals,” he said he was close to contract extensions with ABC, ESPN and TNT.

In an overlooked development, the NBA isn’t in trouble at all, but a colossus, the No. 2 property in rights fees, as compiled by SportsBusiness Daily.

No one approaches the NFL’s $3.7 billion a year, but even before the NBA extension kicks in, presumably with the “healthy raise” Stern said he expected, his league is No. 2 at $767 million.

Supposedly hot properties such as the NCAA basketball tournament ($565 million), NASCAR ($556 million), Major League Baseball ($553 million) and the Tiger Woods-era PGA Tour ($492 million) all trail.

MLB and the NBA have leapfrogged each other since the ‘90s, depending on which league signed the last contract. Those days are over, with baseball locked in through 2013 and the $200-million gap about to get bigger.

If happy days are here again, why doesn’t anyone know it?

Instead, tipping off his overriding fear of another Auburn Hills, Stern insists on absolute control with no thought to obtaining the consent of the governed.

The union is so much in the dark, NBA Players Assn. Director Billy Hunter said last week that he worries about the economics. Stern won’t even tell him the good news.

Now that we know the games are going to continue, it would be nice if they could get someone to watch.

The NBA thought its 6.5 rating for the Spurs and Nets Finals in 2003 was a fluke, in ABC’s debut with an inexperienced staff and a low-power sports division, since taken over by ESPN.

They just crashed through the floor with the Spurs-Cavaliers, setting an all-time low at 6.2, on merit.

This set off the usual nationwide debate on the NBA’s chances of survival ... which somehow no one got around to after the last two World Series set all-time ratings lows.

The NBA actually has more to offer than blowing up LeBron James and floating him out like a hot-air balloon.

(How long do we have to endure children being compared to Michael Jordan? At 22, Michael Jordan wasn’t Michael Jordan either.)

Unfortunately, most of what the NBA has to offer is in the West, making its marquee event an afterthought.

Stern has been dismissing the notion of reseeding for five years. I know because I was the one who used to bring it up before he beat me down.

Detroit and Miami bought him some peace, even if the Pistons’ 2004 win over the Lakers was a stunner and the Heat won in 2006 only after the Dallas Mavericks, who were about to take a 3-0 lead, gagged.

This was the year the B-52s came home to roost.

Of course, if they had been reseeding, when Dallas lost in the first round, Phoenix and San Antonio would have gone into opposing brackets, on track to meet in the Finals.

The West has won seven of the last nine Finals and 31 of 48 games. The entire All-NBA first team is from the West, with stars of tomorrow Greg Oden and Kevin Durant on their way.

Nor is there anything promising on the Eastern horizon.

In the East, the threadbare Cavaliers are a good young team. So are the Bulls, even if Luol Deng is their tallest starter.

The Pistons might or might not have another run in them. With President Joe Dumars fuming that complacency “will not be the calling card of our team going forward,” and Rasheed Wallace ticketed to ride, they have work to do.

Miami was a joke, but where there’s Shaquille O’Neal and Dwyane Wade, there’s hope if they can get help ... like Ron Artest?

The East isn’t just lame, it’s slow. Of the top nine offenses, eight were in the West.

We just saw what that means with the Cavaliers, who were not only in over their heads but boring beyond belief.

Of course, being David Stern means never being out of rebuttals, but he tried it his way. You saw what happened, at least if you were among the 6.2.

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mark.heisler@latimes.com