DENVER — The NBA will be better off when LeBron James retires.

The league has a self-made crisis on its hands, and the face of the league isn’t helping one bit.

The NBA playoffs opened Saturday in the most fitting manner possible — with a double standard that benefits the star player. James violated COVID-19 protocols by attending a tequila party with rapper Drake and actor Michael B. Jordan, ESPN reported. Nuggets fans are old enough to remember when Michael Porter Jr. was sidelined for a week thanks to contact tracing. LeBron’s punishment: nada.

Rules for thee, but not for 23.

“If it was a nobody, they would put him in health and safety protocols,” TNT analyst and NBA Hall of Famer Charles Barkley said Saturday on the Jenkins and Jonez podcast. “Ain’t no (expletive) way LeBron James is going to be sat out on health and safety protocols.”

Chuck’s right, and it’s not a good thing when a league has the credibility of the WWE, you know.

“The NBA ain’t got the (guts),” Barkley added.

The lack of credibility is part of what has turned folks off the NBA in a big way. TV ratings for the playoffs last year were down 37 percent, according to The Athletic. The NBA Finals, with LeBron and the Lakers, were down 49 percent from the year before. The numbers for “NBA on ABC” this year were down 10 percent from last year — an all-time low, The Athletic reported. That’s a crisis. And in a star-driven league, that’s a reflection of the biggest star, James.

As the Nuggets and Blazers tipped off a juicy playoff series Saturday night, it was hard to imagine this NBA longs for eyeballs. Nuggets fans poured into Ball Arena with a buzz that hasn’t been felt here in over a year. Nikola Jokic’s selfless game is a real-time lesson in sharing is caring, and the Joker found Porter for an early bucket that pumped the volume button in Ball Arena. Damian Lillard’s shooting range can be acquired only in workouts that extend way past a normal man’s bedtime. This series is flat-out action ball — with the added attraction of lovable stars. Seven games, please.

If the NBA were smart, it would start its rebrand now. Promote the stars who care about the health of the game. Lift up Lillard, whose strong, proud leadership stands as a model for 15-year-old hoopers everywhere. Celebrate Jokic, as humble a superstar as the league has ever seen.

Run down the All-Star rosters, and you’d be hard-pressed to identify a more talented era of basketball than this one. You can’t. This is it, yet folks are changing the channel in droves.

That’s not all on James, of course, but it starts at the top. Always does, and he’s at the tip-top. He’s an NBA all-timer who manages to compromise the NBA at every turn. This season he whined from start (about the shortened offseason) to finish (the fantastic play-in games).

“Whoever came up with that (expletive) needs to be fired,” James said of the play-in games.

Those aren’t things the NBA wanted to do. Those are things the NBA needed to do. And the face of the league dumped all over the league that’s paid him $346 million. Talk about privilege.

The LBJ act is tired, and that extends off the court to the social justice movement that triggered the league’s free fall from popular. If James truly cared about societal inequalities, he would challenge China. If he cared about safety in low-income neighborhoods, he would speak out against the record violence taking place in low-income neighborhoods. He doesn’t actually care. It’s an act, a flop, and the crazy part is people buy it. Instead of criticizing the Chinese government for its myriad human rights abuses, James criticized free speech. Instead of celebrating the cop who saved a young woman from getting stabbed, he tweeted a target on the cop: “YOU’RE NEXT.”

The LBJ act is good for no one except for LBJ. Judging by the ratings and overall interest level, a bunch of former NBA fans see through it.

As a former LBJ fan, I can’t be the only one who believes his exit will be good for the game as a whole. I can’t be the only one who watched him crumple to the court, cover his eyes, writhe in merciless pain, feign a gunshot wound … and hit a big 3. Gimme a break. James should get an Academy Award for these acting performances.

Nobody’s watching the Oscars, either.