League Already Needs to Come In From Code

David Stern

National Basketball Assn.

New York, N.Y.

Dear Commish,

I know, everyone has gone nuts. I’m sure ESPN’S lead-in tonight will be Allen Iverson getting off the bus at the Palace of Auburn Hills with a camera crew, panning his outfit to see if there’s jewelry over his clothes and he observes the north-south rule (if he wears a baseball cap, the bill has to point forward).

I know it isn’t your fault. You ran it by the union people, who said OK, but how representative are they? Billy Hunter, whose taste runs to charcoal and pinstripes, may be the best-dressed man in basketball, and the players on his executive board were older guys who think Stephen Jackson is as bonkers as you do.

Of course, once it became clear this would be an issue, I think you should have turned tail and fled. This was a fight you couldn’t win and wasn’t worth having.

I just saw some USC professor in some panel discussion on the (drumroll) Cultural Implications of this, saying you were really just “showing who is in control.”

Of course, anyone who has ever tried to run a league these days knows who’s in control. No one is.

Remember when the NFL decided to clean up end-zone celebrations? It has been known ever since as the No Fun League and Terrell Owens is still doing his clown act weekly.

And besides, what’s the big deal? Let’s take Iverson, strolling to the dressing room. Let’s say he’s wearing a nice suit and tie, so what? The cameras will be all over him during the game, tattoos, cornrows and all.

There isn’t any changing who these guys are and you know what? Thank heavens for them.

Now, I’m with you. I’m not into tattoos in a big way. On the other hand, our generation isn’t supposed to like the stuff young people do, any more than our parents liked it when we grew our hair down to here, down to there, down to where it stopped by itself.

Actually, the less they liked it, the longer we grew it. You remember when we thought it was so funny when they told us to shut our bedroom door and turn down our record players? This is payback for Elvis.

Your guys are definitely wild -- and then there’s Ron Artest -- but that’s just how it goes in the age of the 25-year-old, entourage-toting, Drew Rosenhaus-enabled multimillionaire, and that’s across sports.

Your guys are fun too. They say what’s on their mind, however outrageous. And how many commissioners were ever kissed on the cheek in a ring ceremony before Brent Barry smooched you Tuesday night?

Of course, these days you get the idea that hip-hop has passed communism as a threat to the American Way. Last All-Star game, the Rocky Mountain News ran a story that started: “Riots, terrorist attacks or a deadly confrontation between rival rap labels -- if anything happens as NBA All-Star events take place this week, Denver police and the FBI will be ready.”

Everybody will just have to chill. I understand your sponsors are concerned -- although they all target the youth demographic too -- but your league has overcome greater hurdles. It wasn’t that long ago when the problem was actual racism, instead of this, which is as much generational, when there were unspoken quotas on starting teams and rosters, when you had so little national appeal, CBS carried your Finals on tape delay.

There’s no doubt, the NBA gets a bad rap -- but the more you try to do about it, the worse you risk making it.

Take last spring when you hired Republican strategist Matthew Dowd to tell you what people in the red states thought. Unfortunately, it got out and you might as well have taken out newspaper ads announcing: “We’re not sure we have any fans in 38 states of the Union and, left to our own devices, no idea what to do.”

Then there was your saber-rattling speech, warning the union that time was running out. Now, I know the union may have required a little of the old prodding -- but half the nation’s sports editors began assigning labor stories thinking a lockout was imminent.

Then a week later, you and Hunter agreed to a few tweaks of the existing deal -- which both sides already had pronounced themselves happy with. That ended the “war” but not before it had cast a pall over the Finals. Between you and Larry Brown’s job search, you were lucky to squeeze the games in.

At this point, I have a few suggestions:

Take a deep breath. Whatever your image problems are, you can’t cure them by imperial fiat. Besides, who out there has such a great image? Baseball just spent its season before Congress and posted its lowest World Series rating.

As our generation used to say, make love, not war. You invented the notion of promoting your players, as opposed to trying to keep their union down.

Drop the Judge Dredd act. If you had to take draconian measures after the Palace melee, it’s over. See if you and the union can go a season without suing each other.

FIX THE GAME!

Stop saying how fluid it is now. At the championship level, it’s still like mud wrestling, as when the Spurs averaged 91 points and the Pistons 87 last spring.

Use the Development League for experiments, such as the international conical lane that might get rid of post-it-low-wait-for-the-double-team-reverse-the-ball-eat-up-the-cloc k offense.

Sit back and enjoy the season for a change. You still have the best three-ring circus going.

Yours in basketball,

Mark Heisler