SAN ANTONIO – The NBA has accomplished much under David Stern’s tenure, and yesterday’s labor agreement to prevent a lockout is just one more example. While the NHL’s year-old lockout shows no signs of ending and the sport’s popularity hovers somewhere between jai alai and nude spelunking, the NBA continues to make inroads in the minds of sports fans – especially overseas.

But for all those things Stern and his henchmen have done well, there is one area where they’ve failed badly – promoting teams as much as they promote players. In what has turned out to be a classic NBA Finals, that mistake has returned to haunt them.

Despite a compelling seven-game series between the past two NBA champions and a see-saw Game 5 that was one of the best playoff games in recent memory, the TV ratings for this series have been abysmal. Writing in this space last week, Martin Johnson touched on one reason: the unwillingness of announcers to discuss and analyze good defensive plays – especially complex rotations – in a way that fans can easily digest.

Other issues no doubt have played a part: the lack of a team from the top three markets, the low-scoring, slow-paced style of both clubs, and ABC’s decision to hire a play-by-play announcer (Al Michaels) who doesn’t seem to like basketball.

But ultimately, this is the NBA’s fault more than anyone else’s, because they’ve spent the entire year touting a handful of star players, none of whom are in the Finals. It seemed like every time we flipped on the TV to watch the NBA, Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal, and LeBron James were staring back at us. Those three players probably accounted for 90% of the league’s commercials and national telecasts. Allen Iverson and Yao Ming soaked up most of the rest.

So when the Finals came around and none of those players were involved, what were the fans supposed to think? These teams aren’t important, is what the league seemed to be telling us. And we’re surprised that ratings are down?

It’s not as if these clubs came out of nowhere. Before the season began, the consensus among hoops observers was that San Antonio would win the West before meeting the defending champion Pistons in the Finals. Knowing this, the league could have made a more concerted effort to promote both teams in its Sunday contests on ABC and the Thursday night TNT games.

Instead, we got 15 Laker games, 15 Heat games, and 13 Cavs games – but only 12 apiece for San Antonio and Detroit. That doesn’t account for the timing either – the league’s marquee Christmas day game on ABC, for instance, featured Lakers vs. Heat, while the Spurs played an unusual number of late-night games for a team in the Central time zone.

The NBA’s star-promotion formula has its merits, and it worked for more than a decade. But the league was helped immensely by the fact that every Finals for 14 straight years involved Michael Jordan, O’Neal, or a New York-area team – until this one. In the past, when the league rammed Jordan, Shaq, and Kobe down our throats all season, it actually improved the ratings for the Finals.

These days, the NBA is wasting time promoting lesser teams while San Antonio and Detroit get precious little exposure. It’s true that the Spurs and

Pistons don’t offer many compelling individuals to promote. Tim Duncan, while a wonderful player, is about as exciting as tofu, and Detroit relies on five very good players rather than one great one. But the league needs to figure out how to market the qualities the Spurs and Pistons possess in spades – great teamwork, outstanding defense, impassioned coaching, and no agendas.

Unfortunately for Mr. Stern, the Spurs-Pistons finale isn’t going to be a one-shot deal. The two clubs could easily be the Lakers and Celtics of this decade, meeting in the Finals year after year while the other 28 teams remain a notch below. In fact, you could argue that’s already the case – this year’s Finals would be a rematch if not for Derek Fisher’s heave with 0.4 seconds that sunk San Antonio in last year’s Western Conference Finals.

To see why, just take a look at the rosters. Detroit relies on six key players – Chauncey Billups, Richard Hamilton, Tayshaun Prince, and the Wallaces – to provide nearly all its scoring. All six will be under contract for at least three more seasons once Ben Wallace and Prince ink extensions in the off-season. To boot, none of the six are older than 30. So the Pistons are young enough to stay in contention for several more years and guaranteed not to lose a player to free agency.

Plus, Detroit could be a much stronger club a year from now if they can sign a quality player with their mid-level exception – Donyell Marshall might look good here – or if Darko Milicic finds a pulse.

Similarly, the Spurs are poised to dominate for several more seasons. The core group of Duncan, Manu Ginobili, and Tony Parker is signed through 2010. All are in their primes: Duncan is 29; Ginobili, 28; and Parker is just a pup at 23. While some other rotation players are getting up in years – Bruce Bowen and Robert Horry are both 34, and Brent Barry is 33 – San Antonio’s masterful talent acquisition skills should more than make up for that aging process.

The Spurs still hold the draft rights to one of the best players in Europe, Luis Scola, who could be jumping to the NBA next year, and San Antonio could also use its mid-level exception on a player like Marshall or Shareef Abdur-Rahim.

Thus, the Spurs and Pistons seem to be each other’s only obstacle to a dynasty. The two things that usually kill off championship teams are age and free agency, but both clubs are young and have the key players signed for several seasons. This should make for a great rivalry and several wonderful NBA Finals series. Certainly, this year it has. Now the only problem is getting people to watch.