Commissioner Must Overcome Costly Turnover

If David Stern were a player, who would he be? My guess is a very dependable point guard, heady but not big-headed, a pass-first guy who could stick the jumper, make the big play in a one-point game. Cooperative in the locker room, disinclined to controversy but eager to step up for the good of his team.

John Stockton. That’s who Stern would have been. Uncharismatic wheeler and dealer, all-time leader in career assists.

Stockton happened to join the Utah Jazz the same year, 1984, that Stern became commissioner of the National Basketball Association. But while Stockton, who was recently selected for another Olympic showcase, continues breaking defenses down, Stern is in the teeth of a potentially lethal and legal trap. Now, more than ever, the crafty commissioner must utilize his sharp wits, keen eyes and fast feet. A few wrong calls at this juncture of a tight labor contest, and Stern might foul out for the first time in his 12-year run.

Sometimes even the great intuitive players don’t pick up the shot blocker until it’s too late. Stern, in this case, thought he was home free last month with a new collective bargaining agreement. He faked left on his man, the union director Simon Gourdine, who overplayed his position to protect his players from being locked out. Stern crossed over, leaving Gourdine in his tracks. So easy, so uncontested, or so it seemed, was this drive for a precedent-setting luxury tax.

For more than a decade, Stern has been a deity among leaders of contemporary team sports. He magnificently controlled the NBA owners’ ball. He was the floor leader who orchestrated unimagined television gains, amazing global growth and licensing coups. The owners picked when he wanted them to pick. They rolled when he told them to roll. They filled the lanes and waited for him to deliver the rock.

The last few years, though, new owners joined Stern’s team. Along with some holdovers, they began to lob up some ill-advised shots, thinking “me” before “we.” They exploited loopholes in Stern’s beloved salary cap. They defied his strict broadcasting rules and forced him to sue. They ignored his pleas for sound fiscal moves. Financial chaos loomed, as the players went on a run of crazy megadeals.

Every great point guard knows he is nothing without the loyalty of his cast. To reassert his control of his locker room, Stern may have sensed that he needed to blow the union out. The players would have agreed to tightening cap loopholes.

They were ready to swallow rookie pay slotting and contract length limits. That would have been a 10-point victory for Stern, but that was not enough. Stern tried to run it up the score with a 100 percent tax and other restrictive goodies. He played an isolation game with the overmatched Gourdine, but somehow lost the ball.

Out of nowhere came Patrick Ewing to reject his deal-sealing slam. Michael Jordan got the players out on a union decertification fast break. The stunned commissioner called timeout to lock out. The typically sanguine Stern talked some trash. “Parasites,” he called the agents who roused the players. “The big lie,” he called the notion that decertification was the weapon that would insure a season.

Stern and his staffers began calling players. He made a personal appeal last week to Reggie Miller. Implied threats were made to lesser players: decertification could cost them their jobs. When that tack appeared to fail, when talks with a diminished Gourdine broke down Thursday night, Stern tried his power game, like Stockton going inside to Karl Malone.

“We are resigned to the fact that there won’t be a season,” Stern said, even though the season is more than three months away.

He, of course, is resigned to nothing. No point man as creative and pragmatic as David Stern puts his ball down and takes a seat on the bench just because his team has failed to close. He learns from his mistakes. He respects his opponent. He runs another play, hopes for better execution. Whichever court he is in, NBA or federal, Stern will play hard in this fight of his commissioner’s life.

He may have to be better than Stockton to win this one, though, to emerge from this with his sparkling image and his league’s credibility intact. He may have to be Magic.