An issue with several shades of gray

Something’s broken, all right, but it’s not what everyone thinks it is.

It’s not so much the appearance of lawlessness.

It’s not even players as clueless as the Knicks’ macho Smurf Nate Robinson -- “Nate the Nitwit,” the New York Daily News called him -- who don’t know there’s a bigger picture.

The real problem is the rift between NBA Commissioner David Stern, who’s determined to restore the players’ image no matter how many millions of their dollars he has to take, and the players who are rallying around their nitwits and denouncing Stern.

This is Looney Tunes or just the NBA. Every season it gets harder to tell the difference.

Two years after the NBA’s night of infamy in Auburn Hills, there was another rumble that was way too close to it for anyone’s comfort.

Two days after the Nuggets-Knicks brawl in Madison Square Garden, all anyone was talking about was how Stern handled the incident, as opposed to the incident itself.

Three days later it was all part of a plot. Washington’s Etan Thomas, one of the sharpest players around, wrote a piece for Slam magazine, saying Stern wants to “transform us into the NFL and ... chip away at guaranteed contracts.”

We’re caught in a loop. No matter what Stern does, whether it’s wise (instructing referees to call games tighter, opening up play and reviving scoring) or dumb (the basketball), whether the union signs off (the dress code) or is ignored (the basketball), the result is the same: Stern becomes the issue.

Stern is entering his Pete Rozelle phase, like the great NFL commissioner whose wizardry was assumed in his later years when he faced one challenge after another.

Stern’s league is treated as if it’s in daily peril. Actually, he did a remarkable job shepherding it from flavor of the month in the 1990s -- despite a coup attempt by the big agents that resulted in a lockout and wiped out half a season -- during an economic downturn with the ad market collapsing.

Stern took a lot of hits but never a backward step. The NBA was offered a 33% cut by longtime partner NBC in 2002, so he went to cable, was roundly criticized and had the last laugh, or he would if things ever quiet down.

Despite ratings declines, the NBA delivers a young demographic that makes it a valuable property as more recent flavors of the month like NASCAR and Tiger Woods-era golf plateau.

In a fundamental measure of who’s who, the NBA now gets $767 million a season from the networks.

Baseball -- which is still seen as part of Americana, with John Mellencamp singing about “baseball, hot dogs, apple pie and Chevrolet” in a theme no NBA sponsor has tried yet -- will get $657 million next season.

The NBA’s deal is 4 years old and ends in 2008. Baseball’s deals are new and run out in 2013.

The two have leapfrogged each other for 10 years. Now the NBA is set to widen the gap, with Stern noting that ABC/ESPN and Turner Broadcasting are “extraordinarily interested” in extending their deals.

Unfortunately for the NBA, good news is obscured by other facts of daily life -- Auburn Hills, Madison Square Garden, pistol-packing Pacers, $20,000 necklaces snatched off necks outside clubs by entourages of rappers who are then shot, critical owners, conspiracy theories and fines, fines, fines.

As Dallas’ Mark Cuban, the 800-pound gorilla of the owners, would say, it’s great TV. It’s just not Ozzie and Harriet.

Of course, with the NBA there’s one difference -- race -- which serves as the subtext for everything else.

It seemed to matter less in the ‘80s with stars such as Julius Erving and Magic Johnson, before Jordan transcended it entirely in the ‘90s. However, the hip-hop age poses a new challenge that is generational as well as racial.

You can see the generations divide as former players issue warnings that don’t resonate, such as those last fall, after the Stephen Jackson incident, from Boston Coach Doc Rivers (“It’s like my dad said, ‘Nothing good happens after 12’ ”) and Reggie Miller (“You shouldn’t stand behind a player ... in the middle of training camp being out at a strip club at 3 o’clock in the morning, shooting it up like it’s the wild, wild West”).

As a former teammate of Jackson’s and a Pacers icon, Miller’s candor was especially relevant, but no one wanted to touch it. Reggie was left dangling and was even zinged in the Indianapolis Star.

In the end perception is what it is, the players are who they are, the question is how to proceed and the issue is leadership and the consent of the governed.

I have a modest suggestion I’ll call the Obama Solution: Stern should designate an African American to succeed him, whenever he chooses to go.

It is yet to be seen if Barack Obama, the Democratic senator from Illinois, will run for president. Nevertheless, the excitement around him suggests popular intrigue at the notion of electing the first African American president of a country that is about 15% African American.

The NBA is about 70% African American, which would make the notion of having an African American at the top that much more exciting.

Merely being African American isn’t enough. As Obama has more going than his race, anyone who’s going to walk in Stern’s shoes will have to be a sharp cookie with stage presence too.

Nevertheless, that’s who I’d look for. If the presidential thing doesn’t work out, maybe they can get Obama. You don’t get to run the country, but the pay is better.

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mark.heisler@latimes.com