Woj: Lamoriello perfect for Yanks

[Rock]

Woj: Lamoriello perfect for Yanks

http://www.bergenrecord.com/page.php?qstr=...2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk2

Thursday, May 5, 2005

By ADRIAN WOJNAROWSKI

SPORTS COLUMNIST

The beginning of stopping the Yankees' slide into a franchise resembling James Dolan's Knicks and Rangers could come with George Steinbrenner honoring his old infatuation with getting pro sports' brightest executive mind on his franchise masthead. For what these Yankees need, it's worth Steinbrenner's time to recruit an old Providence Friars catcher and Cape Cod League manager out in the Meadowlands, arming Lou Lamoriello with autonomy and a superstar's salary to do what the owner needs done now: save Steinbrenner from himself.

The Yankees don't need bigger salaries and bigger names, but the bald, sixtysomething superstar with a history of spending responsibility and managing with an iron will. Steinbrenner needs Lamoriello to do something as bold as offering a hockey president the throne to the Yankees' Kingdom as CEO: He needs Lamoriello to take the challenge of streamlining the most bloated franchise in sports.

If Steinbrenner cares about the future of the Yankees more than his own fruitless obsession with winning now, he'll stop trying to build teams and build a franchise again. And no one in sports has built better than Lamoriello. No one does a better job hiring the right people for the right jobs - from Rick Pitino at Providence, to drafting Martin Brodeur with the Devils - than Lamoriello.

Now, it's time he make a bid to get him running the Yankees as a CEO. Steinbrenner has called Lamoriello "the best executive in sports," and it's praise well-founded. His genius isn't simply with sticks and skates, but a structure centered on spending smart, scouting smarter and giving players a disciplined, winning environment. He's won three Stanley Cups with a moderate payroll, forever reinventing his roster and organization along the way.

There needs to be a Yankee way again, and Lamoriello can bring that to any franchise, in any sport. The best leaders in sports can do it anywhere.

When he was working with Steinbrenner under YankeeNets, there were whispers that Steinbrenner had designs of moving Lamoriello over to baseball operations, but the arrangement dissolved before he ever had the chance. Still, they spent a lot of time together. They became close. Even so, Lamoriello always dismissed that possibility of working for Steinbrenner exclusively, but if there was ever a time to test his devotion to the Devils, this is it. The NHL lockout is dragging with no end in sight, and the Devils could be faced with a post-Scott Stevens era. This isn't a bad time to make a run at Lamoriello. Maybe, this is the best time of all.

When you visit with Lamoriello, he'll talk forever about the lessons learned from the old Canadiens and Celtics and Packers. For a New England boy, an old Sox fan, Lamoriello would have to be intrigued with lending his vision to bringing the New York Yankees back to dominance. Getting him to leave hockey behind wouldn't be easy, but if Phil Jackson is worth $10 million a season to coach the Lakers, Lamoriello is worth something close to revamp the Yankees' machinery with his CEO's eye, and championship formula.

When they were together, Steinbrenner was forever praising his style and substance. Lamoriello is Steinbrenner's kind of guy, bringing that old-school style that demands professionalism and respect, that forever finds a way to win. More than ever, Steinbrenner needs someone he trusts between the baseball executives and his baseball instincts, someone to stop him when he wants, say, Gary Sheffield over Vlad Guerrero.

Now, he is constantly reshuffling the order of the executives that he trusts with the Yankees, but there needs to be a constant. There needs to be an ultimate executive unburdened with Tampa and New York faction loyalties, unburdened with any agenda but winning.

When Nets president Rod Thorn needed Lamoriello to convince ownership to make the Stephon Marbury for Jason Kidd trade, it was done. If our basketball people believe it's best, let them do it, Lamoriello said. He didn't pretend to be a basketball genius, but he was smart enough about what works in sports to understand that a chance to get the best passer in any game is nothing that should be passed up.

What's more, the Yankees' organization has been pushed so far from the real-world realities of fiscal responsibility, it could stand for an education in the principles of doing more with less that drives championship franchises like the Devils. The Yankees' spending has to stop for the simplest reason of all: It's no longer working.

Once, it was the solution. Now, it's the problem. When the Yankees were winning world championships, there was a philosophy, a plan, a program. Lately, it's dissolved into the idea that throwing more money at a problem was always the answer.

When the Yankees were chasing a $100 million payroll, they were mostly re-signing the great young talent that they had drafted and nurtured within their system. Once Steinbrenner started chasing $200 million, he was chasing everyone else's players. That's where it's gone out of control, where it's started to collapse on him.

In defeat, Steinbrenner has surprised people in the past. In defeat, sometimes he gives you his most self-examined moments. In Mike Vaccaro's superb book, "Emperors and Idiots," he reports the story of Steinbrenner watching the Red Sox' players and fans celebrating long after the final out of Game 7 of the ALCS. When everyone expected he would be furious, he told underlings, "Keep the lights on for them as long as they want. They've earned it."

It is time for Steinbrenner to have one of those humbling epiphanies, to understand that he's getting buried under a collapsing infrastructure, that something has to change far more dramatically than firing Brian Cashman at the end of the season.

The good old days are gone for the Yankees. They need to think radically, if only to get themselves back to the fundamentals of what makes franchises: bold, visionary leadership. The executive in sports is sitting across the George Washington Bridge, a labor stoppage leaving him without a sport to call his own. Give him a game, George. Give him a call. For the future of the crumbling Yankees, give it a shot.

[devilsadvoc8]

I hope this wouldn't happen. Couple of points against this.

Would Lou want to switch sports this late in his career and work for a meddling boss no matter what the arrangement was?

Lou works wonders with a limited budget, would he be successful where money was no object? Sure the yankees could impose a budget on themselves but as soon as the Red Sox made a big signing, George would go around Lou and sign another guy.

Lou has been living and breathing hockey for a long time and while I think he relies on their scouts heavily he is probably a pretty good talent evaluator in hockey. Going to baseball, he would be taking a big step back.

But other than those reasons, the article makes a good point I just don't think Lou is the right man for it (selfishly).

[Ice Man]

MONEY MONEY MONEY

CHALLENGE CHALLENGE CHALLENGE

MONEY MONEY MONEY

IF Offer is made by George......BYE Bye Devils.... Bye Lou.. HELLO Yankees ..HELLO Lou

It's really won't matter for the next couple of year for the Devils. New Owner, Ablany weak, players leaving the Devils.

[LOTCB]

You know what would REALLY help the yankees?

Howard Spira comes back and gets the Bo$$ suspended again so he can stop meddeling!!!!

[MantaRay]

I think Lou has too much pride to go to the Yankees.

He worked with them once and that didn't work out. Lou is already a millionaire with a lot of respect. I can 't see him going to something like baseball.

I can see Lou retiring before leaving the Devils organization. This is his legacy and his creation.

[LizDevil30]

If Lou left probably his second in command, who is it Conti? I don't remember his name, would get the job and do very well at it.

[Weekes Head]

If Lou left probably his second in command, who is it Conti? I don't remember his name, would get the job and do very well at it.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Yup, David Conte is the man you're thinking of.

[MadDog2020]

Here's all I have to say to that article:

[point]

I found the writer's description of Steinbrenner's passion for winning as a "fruitless obsession" a bit unbelievable, considering the Yankees success. They are only 26 games into the season. Give me a break. And even if they finished with a .425 record, the past WS rings can't be ignored.

But ti was nice to see LL's name in print.

[Jerrydevil]

What an asinine column.

I don't know where to start with the idiocy of this column. Let's start with the fact that Lou is a hockey executive, not a baseball exec. Why not make freakin Bill Parcells the manager, too?

And the idea that Steinbrenner can coexist with a guy he can't push around is laughable.

What a dork this Wojanwujanah is.

[Triumph]

Lou really isn't the talent scout on the Devils anymore. A great executive isn't his own intellect and ability: it's how he runs the organization and who he hires to do his thinking for him. He was the athletic director at Providence.

Lou is also a millionaire several times over and has no need to take on this challenge this late in life.

[Derek21]

I don't think it's assinine Jerry. If anyone could do it, Lou could. And with the current state hockey's in, you never know.

How old is he now?

The real problem for the Yanks lies in the split between the NY and Tampa (Boss) factions. The Tampa faction has destroyed everything the championship Yankees stood for.

Brian Cashman is hardly allowed to do his job. But he still made some brutal trades.

[Jerrydevil]

Derek, I don't know how anyone could think that Lamoriello, as brilliant as he is, could make a difference with the Yankees. Woj is talking about him becoming Yankees CEO, which is as good as being vice president of vending machines at the Yankees. George Steinbrenner is Yankees CEO.

I think Lou gets a little too much credit for the Nets turnaround. Rod Thorn deserves most of the credit.

[Triumph]

Of course Thorn deserves most of the credit, but Lou helped convince YankeeNets that the Marbury for Kidd deal was a good one.

As for Lou, he has modeled the Devils so that almost any player he brings in will fit with the structure, or they're gone. I haven't seen the Yankees this year, but they seem like they are an unconnected mess, like the Rangers have been for years: a bunch of guys who have their own lives, and who show up to play baseball sometimes. But not a team. Lou's an expert at building a team, at knowing what it takes to make a team, and to make an organization that is from top to bottom committed to winning. He has a lot of ridiculous and arcane rules in place for both the employees and team.

Steinbrenner would never bring Lou in. I don't think Lou would leave the Devils for the Yankees. But it wouldn't be as crazy as you think.