Here’s One They Can Have: The NBA: It’s Frantic-tastic!

Happy Dave is here again! You can’t say things are quite normal, although we’re back in our Sunday slot and there will, thankfully, be a season, which, as my boss notes, should keep me off the high school beat a little longer.

Of course, it will be an NBA season like we’ve never seen before and, hopefully, never will again.

Commissioner David Stern, fresh from his triumph as Hanging Dave, the scourge of the union, is so determined to get out there and sell, sell, sell his league, he even did a stint with David Letterman, reading a list of 10 new, unflattering slogans for his league.

Of course, anyone can play that game, and we have some of our own:

“The NBA . . . geez, what a mess!”

“The NBA . . . we knew we were going to pay for our sins when this thing ended, but we never dreamed we committed so many!”

Who ever saw anything like it? For a week, there were signings and trades galore, all reported on an anonymous-source basis, because the lockout was still technically in effect.

Then the blackout lifted, although in some cities, it was hard to tell.

In Phoenix and Atlanta, there were no practices because they didn’t have enough players under contract.

In Denver and Houston, news conferences were called with great ceremony to announce the arrivals of Antonio McDyess and Scottie Pippen, respectively. These were postponed, then, after waits of several hours, called off for the night, leaving everyone to go “yamma, yamma, yamma” on the evening news and in the next day’s papers.

Usually deals are made with the help of the league’s lawyers, who are really the only ones in the universe who understand the salary cap rules, because they’re the ones who drew them up, or make them up daily. But suddenly there were no barristers available for consultation.

“Every single attorney was working on the deal [the collective bargaining agreement],” one general manager said. “We didn’t get the rules until they faxed them to us a few nights ago. We were working off a draft memo.

“And when we got the rules, the first line read, ‘The draft memo of Jan. 7 is null and void.’ ”

In the absence of firmer guidelines, the agents and general managers did what they usually do--circumvent the cap by any and all means necessary and imaginable.

Thus Houston, which had room to start Pippen at $10.6 million on a $67-million, five-year deal, got the Chicago Bulls to sign him for that much--then tack on $15 million in incentives. Kindly Bull General Manager Jerry Krause was happy to do it, knowing Pippen would become a Rocket one second after signing it.

In return, the Bulls got Roy Rogers and a No. 2 draft pick. At this rate, Krause should have the Bulls rebuilt by the turn of the century. The 22nd century.

Anyway, when Stern’s lawyers got hold of that contract, they started screaming their favorite words--”Cap circumvention!”--and the entire adventure began threatening to outlast President Clinton’s impeachment trial.

In due time, after lengthy consultations between lawyers from all sides, and many hours billed all around, they discovered ways out. Pippen was expected to make his debut in Houston and McDyess in Denver.

This doesn’t feel as much like the NBA any more as the old American Basketball Assn., that ‘60s start-up of bumpkins, such as the Virginia Squires, who had such a disastrous first season, they renamed themselves “The New Virginia Squires,” and were listed in the phone book under “N.”

Of course, what this says about NBA ownership is illuminating.

Three weeks ago, they were ready to torch their season for cost control. Now they’re trying to invent ways to slip players millions more.

At least, we finally know what they were really fighting for: Each wants to control the costs of his 28 competitors, while he waltzes in and buys every useful player on the planet.

Gosh, it’s great to be back!

A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO DENVER

Even by the wacky standards being set around this league, the tug-of-war for McDyess, known to his growing list of friends as “Dice,” was bizarre.

Other descriptions fit: Try “slimy.”

Going into the summer, McDyess, a physical prodigy if still a raw third-year pro, was represented by Arn Tellem, which meant he was a lock to stay in Phoenix, because Sun owner Jerry Colangelo runs a player-friendly franchise, pays top dollar and is close to Tellem.

McDyess, however, then moved to Houston, where he became close to two other local residents, Nick Van Exel, the new Nugget, and John Lucas, the new Nugget assistant coach.

Next thing you knew, Dice, a small-town kid, loved by all for his sweet, quiet nature, had dumped Tellem and hired Van Exel’s agents, Tony Dutt and James Bryant.

Next thing you knew, McDyess was headed back to Denver, which drafted him in 1996 and traded him in 1998, saying he wasn’t “a franchise player.”

If this was a package deal, it was some big package.

The Nuggets are expected to sign Van Exel to a long-term contract. They traded a No. 1 pick to Orlando for rookie Keon Clark, another Dutt client. Yet another Dutt client, undrafted Kevin McCarthy of Southern Mississippi, was invited to camp. He played high school ball with McDyess in Quitman, Miss.

Unfortunately, minutes after arriving at McNichols Arena on Thursday to sign his contract, McDyess learned they weren’t all going to be one happy family together again.

To get cap room to sign him, the Nuggets had renounced the rights to popular LaPhonso Ellis, McDyess’ old pal (and General Manager Dan Issel’s old pal and business partner.)

Ellis, a free agent, told McDyess the Nuggets had betrayed him, stringing him along and then dropping him. McDyess, with tears in his eyes, said the deal was off.

Of course, calmer heads in his entourage prevailed, even if it took the rest of the night, obliging the Nuggets to send the media home amid a spate of “McDyess is leaving again” stories.

Not that there wasn’t some danger. In Phoenix, Colangelo was expressing quiet surprise and mild interest, but in real life, the Suns were on the case.

While McDyess’ representatives conferred with Issel, a long, black stretch limo pulled up outside McNichols. Inside were McDyess’ old Phoenix teammates, Jason Kidd, Rex Chapman and George McCloud, having just jetted in to make a last-ditch plea to Dice, or perhaps to kidnap him. (About the limo: You didn’t really think they were just going to catch a cab from the airport, did you?)

Unfortunately, the three Suns couldn’t get McDyess to go for a ride with them. Dice dried his tears and signed. The Nuggets breathed a sigh of relief, having become fearful McDyess would next ask to have the entire town of Quitman moved to Colorado.

Van Exel, describing his summer of wining and dining McDyess, told reporters he knows many more players who are now eager to come to so-recently-forlorn Denver.

“So this is the new hot spot?” he was asked.

“Well,” said Van Exel, as snowflakes sprinkled down outside McNichols, “it’s not hot, but it is the spot.”

FACES AND FIGURES

Utah’s the place (again), or looks like a short Laker career: Karl Malone, who spent much of the off-season doing sports talk radio in Southern California, demanding a trade to the Lakers and learning about unions, forgave Jazz owner Larry Miller, and, as they blubbered through a news conference, promised eternal fealty to Utah. All it took was Miller’s promise to tack a couple of $14-million seasons onto the Mailman’s contract. Talk about your big surprises. . . . He’s b-a-a-c-k: David Falk, scourge of the league during the lockout, is back to terrorizing individual teams, starting with his favorite, the Charlotte Hornets, with whom he has been at odds since prying Alonzo Mourning away. Falk’s client Glen Rice told the Gaston (N.C.) Gazette he might hold out if the team didn’t renegotiate his contract, which has two seasons left. This was followed by the announcement Rice might have to undergo surgery on his right elbow and sit out two months of the season. . . . Grant Hill, asked about the Detroit Pistons’ signing of “your buddy,” ex-Duke teammate Christian Laettner: “Who says he’s my buddy?” . . . Easy come, easy go: Joe Smith, who last season turned down an $80-million extension in Golden State, signed for the $1.75-million exception in Minnesota. . . . Milwaukee’s Ray Allen, noting that salaries have been all but locked in for star players, says he may no longer pay an agent: “I’m not comfortable with someone coming in and telling me we’re going to get you $9 million when I know that if I get $9 million, it’s the high-end limit, not something they can do for me. That [paying an agent] is ‘ludi-crisp,’ as Mike Tyson might say.” . . . No, really: Tim Grgurich, the assistant coach who helped Gary Payton turn it around in Seattle, is now in Portland, taking on no less than Isaiah Rider, who vows he’ll do the same thing. “There’s no one thing you’ll see differently,” Rider says. “I think I just won’t make the same mistakes I’ve made in the past, that’s all.” . . . The NBA schedule just released is a horrific document, sending teams off on stretches like the Nuggets’ eight games in 10 nights. Piston Coach Alvin Gentry, asked about playing three games in a row: “Three games? Shoot, these guys have never even had to fly commercial. They don’t know anything about three games in a row.”