NBA Dunks All-Star Game

Darn, you mean no . . . slam-dunk contest?

We don’t have to listen to the annual whimpers about Rod Strickland and 49 other players not being all-stars? No Kobe vs. Mike hype? No watching sponsors plaster their names on events and venues, like the AT&T; Pressroom?

Like almost everything the NBA does before April 1, as this lockout has led us to realize, the All-Star game has mostly symbolic importance. But unlike everything else before April, the TV show, the Jam Session and the sponsor schmooze-off have a great deal of symbolic importance, so Tuesday when Commissioner David Stern canceled the Feb. 14 game scheduled for Philadelphia, it exploded like a cannon shot across the union’s bow.

“This is just a result of the inexorable march of the calendar,” Stern said. “There just isn’t enough time left to have a season with an All-Star game.

“If we can’t make this deal, I don’t think there’s hope for the sport itself.”

Not to mention his place in its history. This was Stern’s gloomiest assessment to date. Not that it did anything but start another round of he-started-it-no-he-started-it recriminations.

“Sadly, the owners have elected to cheat million of fans and the city of Philadelphia out of a wonderful spectacle,” said union director Billy Hunter. “Their effort to further intimidate the players will not succeed.”

For Philadelphia, there were intangible losses--the event was part of a civic showcase aimed at reinvigorating its downtown Center City and South Philadelphia, where the game was to be played--and losses that were tangible, indeed, adding up to what officials estimated at $35 million.

More than 5,000 hotel rooms had been booked, representing $3 million in revenues.

“And you can probably double that amount when you include associated revenue, such as meals,” said Mickey Rowley, executive director of the Greater Philadelphia Hotel Assn.

Pat Croce, the emotional owner of the 76ers, said he even asked the league to cancel the game.

“I wanted it,” Croce said, “I lobbied for it, we petitioned for it . . . we did everything for it. But we wanted the whole show. I don’t want half a show that only a small portion of Philadelphia can get involved in. . . .

“We didn’t want a fake game. We want all-stars at our game--all-stars that were voted by the fans for the game, not just appointed.

“We, as a franchise, did everything we possibly could to get everyone back, interested in Philadelphia 76ers’ basketball. The show, the game, the players, the coach, the fans were getting into it. And then all of a sudden, we’re on hold.

“It’s tough. We’re a basketball team, and we have no basketball. So my front-office people are working their fannies off, for what?”

Of course, the league is going to make it up to them. Just not right away.

With the 2000 and 2001 games set for the Bay Area and Washington, the best Stern could do was to promise Philadelphia the 2002 game.

Et tu, Commish? Derrick Coleman, Allen Iverson and now this?

If the league proved it could lower the boom on Philadelphia, the cancellation had no immediate impact on negotiations with its players, which have been frozen in place, with no bargaining sessions in a week and none scheduled.

Both sides are obviously waiting for the 11th hour--but only one side knows when that is.

Stern keeps refusing to name a “drop-dead” date--it could be any time from Jan. 1 to Jan. 31--and he alone knows how flexible the schedule is, how many games can be made up, whether the playoffs can be delayed and--most important--with how few games they can get by.

“They should set a drop-dead date,” says a source close to negotiations. “They obviously need something to jump-start the process. I think they’re within striking distance of an agreement, or they could be in two or three days, but they need something to give them an incentive to meet.”

Well, anyway Stern is getting in practice. Tuesday, he told Philadelphia to drop dead.

“We promise you’ll get a first-class All-Star experience in 2002,” Stern promised the City of Brotherly Love.

Assuming, of course, there’s still an NBA.