From the instant the news exploded into New York’s sporting consciousness, on Dec. 4, there was always one 10,000-ton neon pink elephant loitering in any room in which Steve Cohen’s $2.6 billion bid to eventually own 80 percent of the Mets was discussed.

The five-year waiting period until Cohen would assume full control.

On so many levels, that didn’t make sense. Cohen, for instance, didn’t become an old-school “Bonfire of the Vanities”-level Master of the Universe by being anyone’s show pony. The idea that he would blissfully fill the Wilpons’ coffers for five years without having a say in the team’s direction was completely at odds with every profile of him.

He’s also 63, not 43. It is the billionaires’ sacred code that you can’t take it with you, whether you’re talking about a $15 billion personal fortune or a professional sports franchise. Nothing anyone ever said about Cohen indicated he would take sitting on the sidelines easily, and simply wait until age 68 to ease into the executive suite.

Indeed, as The Post’s Mike Puma reported Tuesday, Cohen had already begun planning an Opening Day gala that would announce his majority ownership of the Mets. Now that sounds like something Bobby Axelrod — er, Steve Cohen — would do.

And on the other side? A couple of days after this announcement, someone close to Jeff Wilpon told me this: “People just assume Cohen’s going to come in and overwhelm everybody and take over. But that five-year waiting period was a key part of the deal. Without that, there would have been no deal.”

From the moment Fred Wilpon became equal partners with Nelson Doubleday following the 1986 season, he has insisted, to anyone who asked, to anyone who would listen, that the Mets wouldn’t only be run by Jeff someday, but also by his grandchildren. Fred Wilpon has long seen the Mets as his legacy both to his family and to his city. That was sacrosanct to him.

But that was also before Bernie Madoff swindled him, nearly bankrupted him and threw him and his businesses into a twisting turmoil from which they still haven’t been completely extricated. Pre-Madoff, it was easy to see a Wilpon baseball dynasty that lasted a hundred years. Post-Madoff, it was only through the grace of a friendly commissioner that he was even allowed to remain a viable owner.

So you don’t have to have an advance degree in reading tea leaves to understand what Fred Wilpon has been seeking: a victory lap, of sorts, for both him and for Jeff, a chance to squeeze out one more championship, all the while taking Steve Cohen’s cash and motoring off into the sunset.

That five-year waiting period?

From Day 1, it was going to be trouble. It was going to be a cudgel for both sides: Cohen was wildly overpaying for 80 percent of the team, and the sale price didn’t even include SNY. That was his idea of a concession. And for $2.6 billion, in his mind, that wasn’t just a fair deal, but a generous one.

Wilpon could get a cash infusion and still run the team. If it allowed Mets fans an opportunity to stop slandering the family name for a little while, all the better.

In retrospect, and with hindsight, the Nic Cage-Lisa Marie Presley marriage had a better shot at a happily ever after.

What now? Look, Fred Wilpon possesses a rare commodity, something an art collector like Cohen can surely appreciate: one of six professional sports franchises (Mets, Yankees, Knicks, Nets, Rangers, NYCFC) that operates within the borders of New York City. The Mets have increased in value almost 150 times from the $21 million that Doubleday paid (with Wilpon pulling the strings) 40 years ago. It is a sure thing. Add to that the fact Cohen is actually a fan of the team, and it’s practically priceless.

But $2.6 billion is $2.6 billion, and it is hard to believe the other members of the Mets’ ownership group — specifically Wilpon’s other children, and Saul Katz and his family — will be delighted to see that simply evaporate, unless there’s someone else on deck.

But given the fact this is twice in nine years now that a rainmaker has been welcomed in and then shooed aside — David Einhorn in 2011 also made himself a little too comfortable sitting in the corporate furniture a little too early in the process, and that deal crumbled — you wonder just how deep the pool of eager would-be buyers really is right now.

Besides, the deal may well be dead.

But if it isn’t? From the cheap seats, at least, it’s hard to imagine Fred Wilpon didn’t overplay his hand here, sitting across the table from a master poker player who doesn’t take prisoners.