Bob Cook

Commissioner David Stern might believe the NBA’s biggest image problems involve gambling referees, miscreant players or fleeing franchises. But Stern has been slow to move on his league’s most devastating problem — the dominance of the San Antonio Spurs.

Look, you know and I know the Spurs aren’t really boring. But the so-called casual fan — well, that fickle beast just doesn’t care. How many dishy TV stars does Tony Parker have to marry before the Spurs get anyone’s attention? How many opponents does Bruce Bowen have to decapitate? Judging by the way America flees its television sets when the Spurs are on, the answer to either question is, never enough.

Stern is going to have to set up some sort of emergency command post to jazz (not Jazz) up the Spurs, the same way the NFL succeeded in convincing America Indianapolis is a glamour city. That’s because all indications point to the Spurs this year doing what it so far has not been able to do in its four-titles-in-nine-years semi-dynasty: repeating as NBA champions.

Sure, it would be nice to pick a much more exciting team like Phoenix or Dallas, or even the Chicago Bulls if Kobe Bryant ever gets traded there.

But the Spurs still come with the NBA’s most dominant player, Tim Duncan, and a strong supporting cast that only got stronger when San Antonio the other day dumped Beno Udrih on the Minnesota Timberwolves.

Really, without that guy, San Antonio’s sweep of Cleveland in last year’s finals wouldn’t have been nearly so tight. Man, what a drag on the team he was.

Plus, Phoenix’s Steve Nash is 34 and getting creakier by the day, and teammate Shawn Marion is threatening to eclipse Bryant as an All-Star whiner about wanting to be traded. You would think Dirk Nowitzki and coach Avery Johnson, after two straight colossal playoff chokes, would have this postseason thing down by now. But face it: we’re all waiting to see how the Mavericks kick their season away this year.

As for Chicago, the Bulls don’t have the dominant player to win a title without Bryant, but he would kill the team’s chemistry and flow if he arrived. Oh yeah, that new Boston big three of Kevin Garnett, Ray Allen and Paul Pierce? Great if they stay healthy. But who knows that a troika of high-mileage players over 30 will last long enough?

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San Antonio is the only team that can beat you when you want to run, and beat you when you don’t. The only question mark for the Spurs is whether they are complacent, but four titles in nine years is one signal they aren’t getting sick of winning. Also, they could use one set of back-to-back titles to burnish their dynastic credentials.

So while LeBron James hosts “Saturday Night Live,” Dwyane Wade hangs out with Charles Barkley in commercials, and Nowitzki and Nash cement permanent Internet fame with frequently posted pictures of their drunk night out, San Antonio’s players come up empty in the entertainment department. Whoopee, Duncan is in a new shoe commercial. So are four other NBA players and a group of kids, and the ad pushes a feel-good, join-the-team vibe.

That won’t do.

Stern has got to get going quickly to avert another Spurs-led crisis.

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