nypost:What Stern needs to do now is precisely what Rozelle did in those first dark, dreary days of 1979, when he used his considerable powers of persuasion to foist George Young upon the Giants, understanding better than the Maras ever could that there was one way to get things turned in the right direction, and that was not only identifying the right man but handing him the keys to the store and letting him build things back from the ground up.
In the happy aftermath of the Giants' first Super Bowl victory in January 1987, Wellington Mara had this to say in the pages of the New York Post: "I'd like to think this is as much Pete's victory as it is ours."
And he was right, of course. Wellington and his nephew, Tim, had stopped talking by early 1979, had completely different ideas how to run a football team, and it was slowly destroying the sport's credibility in its biggest and most important market. Rozelle couldn't sit idly by, and he certainly couldn't label what he was seeing as some kind of media invention. He knew better. So he convinced two stubborn men to set aside their differences and do what was best for the team - and, by inevitable extension, the league.
Stern has those powers, if he wants to use them. He certainly has an owner in Dolan who is in every bit as over his head in 2006 as the Mara family was in 1979. And he has a league that in 2006 is every bit as much in need of relevance in New York City as the NFL was in 1979. On Feb. 14, 1979, the Maras, through Rozelle, provided Giants fans with as splendid a Valentine's Day present as they could ever have asked for, when Young was introduced as the Giants' new GM.
We've long believed that Stern is Rozelle's spiritual descendant, maybe the last of the great commissioners, supremely confident and supremely competent. The Knicks need someone like him to take James Dolan out to the woodshed and fix this wretched mess. So does New York. So does the NBA.
Maybe there's no one as obvious as George Young was back in the day. If Rod Thorn were still working for Stern, there would be the chance for an almost-complete mimicking of the process. But there is someone Out There who can be the Knicks' salvation, who can be the Knicks' Young. Stern must have his opinions who that man is. And he has to know how much more useful that is than taking the Dolans' side in their middling war of attrition against the press.
A commissioner acts in the best interests of his league. Keeping New York solvent is always in the best interest of any league that matters. The commissioner has to do his job here, and he has to do it well. It may be the Knicks' only hope.
