LAS VEGAS - The sun has not yet climbed above the neon signs, but already this eclectic group gathered downtown is abuzz, energized in part by the free-flowing Starbucks but mostly by the 66-year-old man in pinstripes.

One fellow in a wheelchair is dressed as Uncle Sam or Colonel Sanders; it's hard to tell under his red-white-and-blue hat, glittery shirt and Mardi Gras beads. Another says he's a local reporter, a wannabe George Plimpton begging to become mayor for a day.

Then there are the well-wishers, lined up to thank the man in pinstripes for all he has accomplished.

In the midst of this commotion is Oscar B. Goodman, the self-proclaimed Happiest Mayor in the World and former lawyer to the mob, handing out poker chip business cards that bear a caricature of himself holding his signature martini glass.

All that seems to be missing are the showgirls on his arms.

"Aw, showgirls don't get up this early," cracks Andy Kaye, morning-show co-host for KOMP-FM (92.3) radio, which has promoted Breakfast with the Mayor and, yes, Martinis with the Mayor.

Ask Goodman what's missing, though, and he'd say a signed contract with a major pro sports team. To him, Las Vegas and sports are a better mix than gin and politics.

"To be a great American city, we have to have a major league sports team here. It's that simple," he said.

This weekend, with commissioner David Stern in Sin City for the NBA All-Star Game, the outspoken mayor will get his chance to lobby one more time on a guarantee he made months ago.

"I told my constituents I'm going to have a major announcement by the springtime or I'm a monkey's uncle," Goodman said.

Others hardly see it as a slam dunk.

"It's going to be tough," said Las Vegas native Mary Alderman, a longtime Goodman supporter. "But he'll die trying."

The G word

Las Vegas already has the Gladiators (an Arena Football League franchise), the 51s (the Los Angeles Dodgers' Triple-A affiliate) and the Wranglers (an East Coast Hockey League team), not to mention NASCAR, top-tier golf, tennis, boxing and championship rodeo.

But Gavin Maloof, whose family owns the Sacramento Kings and the Palms Casino Resort, argues the Entertainment Capital of the World needs one of the big four - preferably the NHL or NBA.

"We like to say Las Vegas has everything but then it has nothing because it doesn't have sports," he said. "This is not a minor league town. This is a major league town and a major league city."

There are numbers to bolster his point.

Las Vegas is the fastest-growing region in the country, having tripled its population during the past 20 years. With 7,000 people moving to the area every month, the estimates are it will grow from its current 1.9 million residents to 3 million or 4 million during the next 10 years.

In the Las Vegas Strip corridor alone, $30 billion worth of construction is under way, including projects that will add 40,000 hotel rooms. The local economy generates $72 billion annually.

"At some point, one of the (major) leagues and one of the owners is going to evaluate the market and realize what's occurring here and say, 'We cannot ignore this market anymore,' " said Vince Alberta, a Denver native and Mesa State College graduate who is vice president for public affairs at the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. "It's not a matter of if; it's a matter of when."

First, there's this little issue called gambling - an issue that juts out like one of those giant construction cranes in the gleaming oasis in the desert.

It hasn't bothered Major League Baseball, which previously considered Las Vegas as a relocation site and at one point weighed a push to put four teams there for spring training.

NHL officials, meanwhile, recently acknowledged a more flexible stance on the gaming issue, though no expansion or relocation currently is planned.

At the other end of the spectrum are the NFL, which won't allow Las Vegas to run tourism commercials during the Super Bowl, and the NBA's Stern, who has said Las Vegas will not get a team as long as NBA games are on the books there.

Goodman, however, has said he will not go to the bookmakers and ask them to take NBA games off the books. (Only the Palms has done so because its owners also own the Kings.)

"The most I would ever do is suggest the UNLV rule (a rule that kept wagers for Nevada-Las Vegas games off the books from 1950 until 2001). But to me, that's disingenuous and hypocritical," Goodman said. "But if that's what it takes, I'm willing to be a little disingenuous and hypocritical."

Goodman, like many others in Las Vegas, insists there's nothing wrong with legalized sports betting.

Photos of Nevada-Las Vegas players in the backyard hot tub of Richard "Richie The Fixer" Perry are more than 15 years old, and the last point-shaving scandal, at Arizona State, occurred in 1994 - and that was uncovered by the Las Vegas sports books that flagged authorities.

"What (league officials) don't understand is that we're all on the same side," said Colorado State graduate Jay Kornegay, executive director of the Las Vegas Hilton race and sports book. "We want a true game, they want a true game. If anybody gets hurt by a crooked game, it's the bookmakers."

He said since the Hilton sports book started taking bets on UNLV and University of Nevada in 2001, he hasn't noticed any difference between those games and others.

"I do believe it would be hypocritical on our part if we had a team here and were not be able to take wagers,"

Kornegay said. "That's giving an indication that there's something wrong with it. In reality, it's so well-regulated and policed, there's nothing wrong with it. We proved it by taking wagers on two major college teams within our borders over the last six years."

Las Vegas also takes wagers on Las Vegas Bowl games, in which Air Force and Wyoming have played, and on Arena league football, including the ArenaBowl in 2005, when the Colorado Crush won the title.

"They go back to your seventh grade," Maloof said of the Gaming Control Board. "They know more about you than you know about yourself."

Anthony's suite life

One doesn't have to look far to see Las Vegas already is a basketball town. It has the UNLV Rebels, the NBA summer rookie camp and the FIBA Americas Tournament in the summer, a 2008 Beijing Olympics qualifier.

Then there's the Hardwood Suite, hardly unusual in a city that boasts a Ripley's Believe It or Not Museum, Elvis Presley impersonators and drive-through wedding chapels.

One year ago, when Carmelo Anthony was left off the All- Star lineup in Houston, he went to Las Vegas instead and checked in to the 10,000-square-foot, two-level suite in the Palms Fantasy Tower.

"It was amazing. You wake up and have got your own basketball court in there. You don't even want to go downstairs to the casinos," said Anthony, who will be back at the Palms this year, as an All-Star.

The suite, rented by Nike for the bash this weekend, goes for $25,000 a night and includes a half-court with scoreboard, a Jacuzzi big enough to fit Shaquille O'Neal and Yao Ming, an owner's box overlooking the court and walls covered in Spalding basketball leather.

There are Murphy beds, long enough to accommodate today's NBA player, that pull out onto the court.

Celebrities including Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, Dennis Rodman and Justin Timberlake have stayed there.

And, of course, Anthony, who left his mark, though not necessarily on the court. He said he signed the wall, just below a signature of Bill Clinton.

While Anthony isn't sure the idea for an NBA franchise would fly in Las Vegas, he said that team would have a heck of a home-court advantage.

"There are distractions everywhere, but Vegas is a distraction in itself," he said.

Nuggets assistant Doug Moe, however, remembers those distractions working to his advantage when he coached with the Carolina Cougars in the early 1970s.

"We had a two-game series with Utah and took the players to Vegas (in between games). The funny part is, we took 'em down there for a couple of days, then beat Utah in Utah. That was probably the only time we won there," Moe said.

What got into his players?

"I don't know what it was, but they must have been happy," he said.

Odd couple

There's no question Goodman is happy. In addition to All-Star Weekend, it's Chinese New Year and Presidents Day weekend, and thousands more were in town to tie the knot for Valentine's Day.

"It's going to be an unforgettable weekend," he said, forgetting the city's sly "What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas" slogan.

But how does he go about softening a commissioner such as Stern, who seems firm in his stance even though the WNBA's Connecticut Sun plays at the Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasville, Conn.?

To many, Goodman and Stern seemingly have little in common.

One parades around with his showgirls and gin martinis, uninhibited in joking he'll bet on "anything that moves" and who was portrayed by Joe Pesci in the 1995 film Casino.

The other is so image-conscious, he implemented a business-casual dress code for players and has made integrity of the game his mantra since the Pacers-Pistons brawl.

Asked about their budding relationship, Goodman had a quick response.

"We're both smart," he said. "That's a common ground, and we've been having this discussion now for seven years.

"I believe when he's in town and when we have a chance to sit down and spend some time together, that at the end of the day, we'll be able to reach an accord and have an understanding that Las Vegas is the appropriate place for the next franchise."

On Wednesday, The Associated Press reported Stern asked Goodman during a meeting for a proposal to deal with the betting issue.

Stern said he hopes to have the proposal when the NBA's Board of Governors meets in April.

What makes Goodman and others think Las Vegas can support an NBA team? Maloof points to the people who call it home.

"There's a lot of people from everywhere, but you've got to remember we still have a population approaching 2 million," he said. "And for the locals, there's only so many times you can go to Mystere or O and to all these shows. There's definitely a need for sports."

While Maloof doesn't believe the All-Star Game necessarily will serve to break down the barriers, "I think it's going to open some eyes."

As the 20-story adidas ad splashed across the side of the MGM Grand and Luxor boldly proclaims: Impossible is Nothing.

The swashbuckling mayor couldn't have said it better himself.

Inside track

Las Vegas profile

• Population: 1.9 million.

• Annual visitors: 39 million.

• TV market: 43rd.

• Hotel rooms: 132,000 (40,000 more planned).

• Marriage licenses issued: 120,000.

All bets are off

As a condition of the league awarding the All-Star Game to Las Vegas, no Nevada sports books are accepting wagers on the game. Betting on the All-Star Game usually is small, but NBA betting represents about 15 percent of a casino's total handle. Nevada regulators have shut the betting books at least three other times.

• The Utah Jazz played 11 games in Las Vegas during the 1983-84 season.

• The Oakland Athletics played their first homestand at 9,300-seat Cashman Field in 1996.

• Riots in Los Angeles in 1992 forced a first-round playoff game between the Los Angeles Lakers and Portland Trail Blazers to be played in Las Vegas.

If you build it

The Thomas & Mack Center on the Nevada-Las Vegas campus is the site of the All-Star Game on Sunday. Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman said if the city lures an NBA or NHL franchise, a new arena would be built on 12 acres of city-owned property next to City Hall.

Chatter

• Goodman said he has had discussions with six pro teams about relocating to Las Vegas, but he would not disclose which league or which teams.

• The Pittsburgh Penguins are cited most often as an NHL candidate to move.

• Goodman contacted the San Diego Chargers, who are embroiled in a stadium controversy, to inquire if they had interest in moving to Las Vegas. They do not.

• Arena issues are threatening NBA franchises in Seattle, Sacramento, Calif., Orlando, Fla., and Milwaukee. Las Vegas could be a new beginning.

• Florida Marlins officials met with Goodman in 2004, but commissioner Bud Selig wanted the team to remain in Florida.

• NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has dismissed Las Vegas as a venue. The NFL generates the most betting revenue.

Chatter about Las Vegas and pro sports

"Tickets five rows up (for the NBA All-Star Game) are going for $27,000 a ticket. There's never been a ticket that high; I don't care if you're talking the Super Bowl, World Cup, Rolling Stones. It's that type of hype and energy that will be surrounding the game."

Gavin Maloof, whose family owns the Palms Casino Resort in Las Vegas and Sacramento Kings.

"You cajole, you beg, you plead - the same things I used to do with

juries when I represented alleged mobsters and they came back with not-guilty verdicts."

Oscar B. Goodman, Las Vegas mayor, on how he is trying to lure a pro sports franchise.

"I don't want one there because I like to go to Vegas and there's not a pro team there. That means there's less happening. . . . You can go to Vegas and do what you do."

Shawn Marion, Suns forward and former Nevada-Las Vegas player.

debruinl@RockyMountainNews.com

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