Does Anyone Want to Be Responsible for All This?

I don’t look at myself as an NBA writer. I look at myself as a leader who happens to write an NBA column.

Well, in my dreams, anyway. I’ve never led anything, but it’s probably just as well because it can’t be as easy as it looks. Otherwise someone would be doing it better.

Take the NBA ... please.

David Stern may be the most powerful commissioner in the land, but these aren’t easy days. The glory days of the Boston Celtics, New York Knicks and Chicago Bulls are over, the Lakers just disappeared and TV ratings are in a constant state of erosion.

Of course, there are happy stories out there, even if they didn’t get as much attention as they might have.

The first round of the playoffs was highlighted when Stern went ballistic at Houston Coach Jeff Van Gundy over a misunderstanding. Van Gundy suggested -- but did not say -- a referee had warned him of a change in approach. Stern insisted Van Gundy said “referee” and blew it up into a huge story with disciplinary overkill.

Stern actually suggested he could banish Van Gundy for life. Stern didn’t even do that with Latrell Sprewell, who choked his coach, or Ron Artest, who started the rumble of the ages.

The second round had the Phoenix-Dallas shootout and Reggie Miller’s farewell. Of course, they were overshadowed when Stern broke off talks with the union, blasting the agents for messing things up. He would have loved to have banished the agents for life on the spot, but, unfortunately, they don’t work for him.

Things weren’t so messed up that the two sides weren’t back at the bargaining table in a week, but the crossfire in the Gotham papers continues. Union lawyer Jeff Kessler just told the New York Times’ Selena Roberts, “Nothing he does ever surprises us.”

This might actually have been a compliment, coming from the pugnacious Kessler, who is the labor version of Stern but without the sense of humor.

Stern actually found out about the agents from an ESPN.com piece, which quoted several as to what they thought of the league’s proposals (predictably little).

Tiresome as it is, listening to agents complaining about the injustices done to their seven-figure-a-year clients, it’s no reason to declare war. Maybe Stern should take that anger-management class with Artest.

In Stern’s defense, a strong commissioner is a good thing. If you want to know how tough he is, ask U.S. Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.), who tried to pin the Detroit melee on “‘roid rage” in the Congressional hearings and was stopped dead in his tracks by Stern, the former courtroom lawyer.

Nevertheless, times are tough all over, and good management is hard to find. The NBA is loaded with owners who are geniuses in their own fields and overmatched in the NBA.

Paul Allen co-founded Microsoft with Bill Gates, retired around the $40-billion mark to buy things, like the Portland Trail Blazers, gave them an unlimited budget and watched them sink out of sight.

Allen, who was from Seattle, had an absentee general manager, Bob Whitsitt, commuting from Seattle too. In Portland, which is like Seattle’s little brother, that was worse than selling the Dodgers to a Red Sox fan from Massachusetts. On top of that, Whitsitt collected bandidos, finally obliging Allen to terminate him if the highway patrol was going to get any rest.

Remember Blazermania? It’s over.

Mark Cuban made a fast $2 billion with Broadcast.com and revived the Dallas franchise but has a problem when the gratification doesn’t come instantly. He favors annual shakeups like the one that let Steve Nash go and brought in Erick Dampier.

Dampier got $70 million, announced he was “the best center in the West” and proceeded to show he was still just his old, sleepy, fumbling self. Cuban told ESPN.com’s Marc Stein he’d do it “100 times out of 100.” Told some people might disagree, Cuban replied, “They’re idiots, then. Next question.”

Then there’s Rich DeVos, the Amway magnate, under whose lack of leadership Orlando has spent the last eight years spiraling down from Shaquille O’Neal and Penny Hardaway to this season’s joke.

Devos ran the team casually through son-in-law Bob Vander Weide, but two years ago recalled him to corporate headquarters in Grand Rapids, Mich. That left the organization in the hands of John Weisbrod, a Harvard-educated former NHL player and executive, considered a rising star.

Weisbrod thought the NBA was so cool, he’d be his own GM. Unlike hockey, however, basketball is a stars’ game, and worse, Weisbrod was a former New Jersey Devil official, trained by Lou Lamoriello to believe a player is only a cog in the system.

Then there was Weisbrod’s keen eye for managerial talent. With his eye for system-friendly, deferential employees, he said last season’s interim coach, Johnny Davis, “gets it,” while Davis was going 20-51 and his players were quitting on him.

Weisbrod kept Davis and traded Tracy McGrady. Finally, at 31-33 with Grant Hill back, a major comer in rookie Dwight Howard and a team that should have made the playoffs standing on its head, Weisbrod replaced Davis with another nobody, Chris Jent, the fourth assistant.

Jent went 5-13. When Weisbrod said he was a candidate to get the job on a permanent basis, Vander Weide was sent back from Grand Rapids. Weisbrod was allowed to resign after one full season on the job, announcing his heart was really in hockey, all along.

“It’s not in the best interest of the organization to have a GM running the basketball team that in his heart would trade three NBA championships for one Stanley Cup,” Weisbrod said.

Now he tells them?

The glaciers would have been back by the time he won three NBA titles. This is a hard business for people who know something about it.

Faces and Figures

Bottom line on last week’s lottery: It didn’t affect the balance of power in any way, unfortunately for the Lakers, who’ll choose No. 10. Just for a starting point, we’ll line it up this way: 1. Milwaukee, Andrew Bogut; 2. Atlanta, Chris Paul; 3. Portland, Gerald Green; 4. New Orleans, Marvin Williams; 5. Charlotte, Deron Williams; 6. Utah, Fran Vasquez; 7. Toronto, Channing Frye; 8. New York, Charlie Villanueva; 9. Golden State, Tiago Splitter .... That would leave the Lakers a choice of 6-foot-8 Danny Granger of New Mexico, an athletic wing player whose stock is shooting up; 6-8 shooting guard Antoine Wright of Texas A&M; 7-3 Lithuanian Martynas Andriuskevicius, who can shoot and pass but is willowy and years away; 6-8 Hakim Warrick of Syracuse, 6-10 Serbian small forward Nemanja Aleksandrov, and 6-6, 235-pound high school guard Martell Webster. I’d go Granger, Webster, Warrick, Wright, Aleksandrov. In the Lakers’ circumstances, with all the expectations their top pick will carry, I wouldn’t take a long-term project like Andriuskevicius. The agents for Andriuskevicius and Splitter are telling people they’ll withdraw if they don’t go high enough. With Chris Taft dropping like a stone and Villanueva a reach in the top 10, that might push Granger up past the Lakers.... You’ll hear a lot of talk about the Lakers and North Carolina point guard Ray Felton, but he’s more of an athlete than a playmaker. One personnel man says the third-best point guard is 6-5 Croatian Roko Ukic.... Forget taking Sean May at No. 10 too. He’ll turn out to be 6-8 tops and his ongoing weight problem is a red flag for attitude.... Now up to 6-11, 250, Frye was regarded as a borderline first-rounder for years. He isn’t dominating (his 7.6 rebounds a game were only 1.6 more than 6-4 teammate Hassan Adams’ 6.0) but he can block shots and score in the post. He’s now shooting up off his impressive NCAA tournament and the fact he’s not years away, unlike the other big men like Splitter, Andriuskevicius, Johan Petro, Andrew Bynum and Randolph Morris. There are reports Frye already has a promise in the top 10. His agent, Rob Pelinka, told the No. 11 Clippers and No. 12 Magic that Frye wouldn’t work out for them.

They’re dropping like flies out there. The Philadelphia 76ers unexpectedly fired first-year Coach Jim O’Brien, the native son who got them in the playoffs but wore out his welcome in his homecoming with his distant style. Allen Iverson stayed cool, but his discontent kept surfacing through the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Stephen A. Smith, and the next thing you knew, O’Brien was gone.... Speaking of mismanagement, 76er GM Billy King, who saddled the franchise with Chris Webber’s contract, will now be paying three coaches -- O’Brien, Maurice Cheeks and Randy Ayers -- a total of $7.5 million. For that kind of money, they could have gotten in the running for Phil Jackson.

Blazermania, still dead: Portland President Steve Patterson, brought in to succeed Whitsitt and launch a community-friendly era, is pursuing his own reign of terror, incensed by leaks about routine matters, like coaching candidates. Last week, Patterson fired the assistant office manager on her 26th wedding anniversary, the video coordinator, the director of practice facility operations and the GM’s assistant. Wrote the Oregonian’s John Canzano: “In the last three months, computer hard drives were searched. Former FBI investigators were called in to interrogate employees. And other employees were asked by their department managers to provide their Microsoft Outlook e-mail passwords and voice mailbox codes. Also, a new security system was installed at the practice facility. It monitored every time doors of the building were opened and closed.... The franchise has become ground zero in the Northwest for fear, mistrust and contempt.”