Ebersol

While he thinks there's considerable work to be done in terms of rebuilding the NBA's tattered image, NBC Sports Chairman Dick Ebersol said yesterday that the league is far better equipped to handle it than baseball was after its work stoppage three years ago.That's because, in Ebersol's view, NBA players appear far more amenable to doing what needs to be done to clean up the mess made by the lockout."

In the topsy-turvy world of network television, you just never know where your next great idea or hire is going to come from. At Fox, for instance, the best addition to its football crew, pre-game show analyst Cris Collinsworth, came straight from the head of one of its chief competitors.When NBC was forced to fold up its NFL shop, Collinsworth, the mainstay of its pre-game show, was wavering between coming to CBS for its New York-based, AFC-centered show or going to Fox's NFC-oriented program, which originates from Los Angeles, and told his agent he thought he would go to CBS.However, Collinsworth, a former Pro Bowl receiver with Cincinnati, said NBC Sports Chairman Dick Ebersol advised him to take the offer from Fox."

It's taken many years, 24 to be exact, and a few knockdown, drag-out arguments between HBO executive producer Ross Greenburg and analyst Billie Jean King, but when the pay-cable channel's coverage of Wimbledon opens Monday, it will feature more women's play than men's."

The official NBA trading deadline has passed, but NBC has pulled the equivalent of a last-minute move to bolster its playoff position with the acquisition of Doug Collins for its No. 1 announcing team.Collins, who was the best NBA analyst in the business for six years before leaving the booth to return to coaching with the Detroit Pistons, immediately gives NBC a needed shot of veteran leadership heading into the postseason.At the same time, Collins, who was fired 45 games into this season after leading the Pistons to successive 50-win seasons, gets back into the game he dearly loves at a job that he excels in."

Faced with a number of choices on how to replace Marv Albert on his network's NBA coverage, NBC Sports president Dick Ebersol last week went back to the option he wanted seven years ago, Bob Costas. But will Costas rue the decision?When NBC snagged the rights to the NBA away from CBS in Ebersol immediately approached Costas -- whose first big broadcasting break was calling games for the Spirits of St. Louis of the ABA in the mid-1970s -- about taking the lead play-by-play slot.However, Costas begged off basketball, arguing to Ebersol that Albert's presence on that sport would be as personally important to Albert as baseball would be to Costas.

Just on the common sense face of it, there really doesn't appear to be any way that Marv Albert can work any more basketball games this season for NBC.Albert was indicted Monday on felony sodomy charges in Arlington, Va. Even allowing for the constitutionally mandated presumption of innocence until guilt is proven, and his adamant denial of the charges, the fact is that his presence on NBA telecasts will cause the viewer to wonder why Albert is there....

A Baltimore actor makes good, "Roseanne" continues the inexorable march to the end of its nine-season run, and one of the shining lights of "Frasier" lends some luster to "Caroline in the City.""Roseanne" (8 p.m.-8: 30 p.m., WMAR, Channel 2) -- Roseanne's in a funk (maybe she realizes her show just isn't funny anymore), so she locks herself in her room. It's up to Jackie, Darlene and everybody else to get her out -- of both the room and the funk. ABC."Touched By An Angel" (8 p.m.-9 p.m., WJZ, Channel 13)

ATLANTA -- In his makeshift office in the bowels of the Olympic broadcast center, NBC Sports President Dick Ebersol tries, with premium cigar in hand, to convince you that he's not a star."

ATLANTA -- After just one telecast, his network is done with baseball until October, but, from the sidelines, NBC Sports President Dick Ebersol is keeping an eye trained on how the grand old game performs for Fox.During a recent interview, Ebersol, whose network passed on a regular-season deal for a five-year All-Star Game and postseason package, said baseball's regular-season value to a network is "lost" because there are so many games available to the...