The issue is not stopping the Spurs from winning. From the start, Stern couldn’t, say, pick the Knicks’ name out of a lottery envelope in the Patrick Ewing draft without drawing more conspiracy theorists than the Kennedy assassination. No, Stern needs to figure out how to give the Spurs an image — not a good one or a bad one, just any image at all.

Putting Duncan in every commercial on television — the Peyton Manning strategy — would help. Maybe getting Parker and his wife, Desperate Housewives’ Eva Longoria, into the act would juice up the Spurs as well.

Longoria has failed as bench eye candy, but maybe some sort of Manning-style, inside-Tony-Parker’s-brain commercial featuring multiple shots of Longoria in negligee would goose things a bit.

Or Stern could go the other way — making the Spurs an evil empire. For example, he could convince coach Gregg Popovich to hire a “video assistant” to hang out by the Suns’ bench and record all of their hand signals. Then Popovich could start wearing cutoff hooded sweatshirts.

Plus, Stern could dictate no more commercial bumpers featuring the Alamo. We all know the Alamo is in San Antonio, and that it hasn’t had any excitement since Pee Wee Herman learned it didn’t have a basement.

Find some shots of life — nothing but Riverwalk!

If Stern and the Spurs move quickly, they can start the buzz machine before people get tired of the San Antonio Spurs crashing the party like a nerd. Casual fans view their entry as an excuse to go to the bathroom — and escape out the window.

Slide show   Week in Sports Pictures Flying on the hardwood, racing on the rink, getting physical on the gridiron, and much more. more photos

It’s unfair that the Spurs have this burden placed upon them, especially when basketball fans recognize this is the kind of fine, upstanding, fundamentally sound team fans of all kinds claim they love to love.

Stern’s crisis is recognizing that what fans say they love, and what they really do love, are completely different.

Gambling refs, miscreant players, fleeing franchises – exciting! The Spurs winning again — boring! It’s going to happen, so Stern had better be ready to deal with the yawning fallout.

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