Chris Mullin waited nervously at the scorer’s table, surveying the home crowd, unsure what reaction he would get from Warriors fans.

Seconds later, those fears were washed away in a sea of cheers. On that January night in 1988, as he returned to basketball from alcohol rehab, his new course officially was validated.

“That response made me realize that I was making the right changes,” Mullin said. “That’s when I understood I had the chance to do something good.”

When Mullin is inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame on Friday, he can reflect on a career that saw him play in five All-Star Games and two Olympiads and stake a claim as one of the greatest shooters ever.

But what he thinks about most is how close he came to squandering it all.

“Life is so fragile,” said Mullin, 48. “Now I wonder, ‘How did this happen to me?’ “

It wasn’t easy, and it nearly didn’t happen.

Before Mullin picked himself up, he first had to take a hard fall from a charmed existence. A gym rat who sneaked past the priests to hoist after-hours jump shots at his parochial school gym in Brooklyn’s Flatlands section, he became a young prince of New York.

Mark Jackson, the Warriors’ new coach and a native New Yorker, first saw Mullin in the layup line before their high school teams played and thought: “Yeah, he’s probably a good shooter, but we can give him the business.”

Afterward, Jackson had to agree with the growing

word around the city: Mullin could play.

“The thing I learned as I got to know him is it wasn’t because of his God-given ability,” said Jackson, later his college and NBA teammate. “It was more his preparation and the hours he put in to become great.”

Mullin’s game always had a 1950s feel — and he eventually completed the look with his trademark crew cut. He compensated for a lack of athleticism with exceptional passing and a knack for getting open for that deadly jumper. By his senior season at St. John’s, he was packing Madison Square Garden and leading the team to the Final Four as the college player of the year.

But it all unraveled with the Warriors, who made Mullin the No. 7 pick in the 1985 draft. After two unexceptional seasons, in which the pudgy Mullin was overmatched by quicker guards, hints of trouble emerged in his third year. As he missed practices, Mullin no longer could hide an alcohol problem.

His last drink was on Dec. 13, 1987. He doesn’t recall whether it was a beer or a shot.

“I bet it was both,” said Mullin, the son of a recovering alcoholic. “At that point I wasn’t discriminating. It probably didn’t even have to be cold.”

The oft-told story is how Don Nelson, then the Warriors general manager, challenged Mullin to give up drinking for a short period of time. When he couldn’t, Nelson staged an intervention along with Mullin’s parents and agent. That led to his 47-day stay at Centinela Hospital in Inglewood.

“I just convinced him that he needed to face his problem,” Nelson said. “He’s one of the rare exceptions to deal with dependency and never have a problem again. Once he solved it, there was this beautiful human being underneath that shell. I thought that was the pivotal point in his career.”

Mullin said countless people had talked to him over the years about his drinking. But none of it mattered until he was ready to listen.

“I didn’t get it,” Mullin said. “In the recovery world, it’s a higher power that helps you. You have to turn your life over to something greater. Anytime I tried to control my life, I had screwed it up.”

He didn’t screw up his second chance.

The time he had spent partying became extra hours in the gym. He would return to the arena late at night with his dog and a radio, and shoot alone. He dropped 30 pounds and transformed his body into a sleek machine.

Nelson took over as coach and moved Mullin to small forward. Mullin came to represent the final initial in the Run TMC teams with Tim Hardaway and Mitch Richmond. For five consecutive seasons Mullin scored more than 25 points a game and finished his 16-year career with an 18.2 average.

As his surrogate son goes into the Hall of Fame, Nelson calls himself “a proud papa.” But he won’t be in Springfield, Mass., for the induction. Mullin and Nelson haven’t spoken in two years.

Mullin, who had become the Warriors’ top basketball executive, rescued Nelson from the coaching scrap heap to work the Golden State bench again in 2006. But when Mullin was forced out in a 2009 front-office power play, Nellie was perceived as a back-stabber.

“He somehow thinks that I had something to do with his demise, which is totally untrue,” Nelson said. “I battled for him, but it was really out of my control. I was just the coach. It’s a sad part of the end of the story.”

At some point, Mullin said, the two will sort out their relationship. Now is not that time.

“But I’ve got nothing to be angry or upset about,” Mullin added. “Are you kidding me? From where I could have been? I’ve got nothing but gratitude for everyone who ever helped me.”

Now an analyst with ESPN, Mullin wants to be an NBA general manager again. He would have no problem rejoining the Warriors’ front office in some capacity under the new ownership group.

“I’m a Warrior,” he said. “That’s who I am.”

It all goes back to that January night 23 years ago when he rose from the scorer’s table to enter the game.

Sobriety remains a daily challenge, but one he continues to navigate successfully. And although his hair is going gray at the temples, he remains in phenomenal shape.

Recently, he biked two hours up Mount Diablo.

“A perfect day,” Mullin said, smiling. “Life is good.”