MIAMI – “You need great players, you need great ownership, and you need a little luck,” said Pat Riley of the road to the NBA Finals. He should know – he’s traveled it nine times.

Today, I want to focus on the middle item on Riley’s list. When you look at the two teams squaring off in the NBA Finals, you don’t just see great coaches and talented players. Behind the scenes, you see something just as important: Stable, committed, local ownership.

It’s no accident that Dallas and Miami are among the best organizations in the game,because their owners have provided adequate financing, clear lines of accountability, and a clear message that they’re in it for the long haul. Yes, it also helps to have Dwyane Wade or Dirk Nowitzki fall in your lap in the draft, but without strong ownership these teams still would languish.

If you don’t believe me,just look at the bottom of the standings. I’ve already written my screed about James Dolan’s incompetence with the Knicks, but at least New York knows who is in charge and where they’re playing next year. At least three other teams have major questions in that department, and it’s no surprise that all four finished at the bottom of the standings this season.

Unfortunately, there is one thing worse than being owned by Dolan, and that’s the state of limbo that affects Portland, Atlanta, and Charlotte at the moment. Each either lacks a clear chain of command at present or has huge doubts about who will own the team in the future, which makes it difficult to get anything accomplished.

In the Northwest, the basic problem is money. Portland owner Paul Allen has bankrolled the team with his Microsoft millions for nearly two decades, but the losses have spun out of control ever since he built the Rose Garden arena without any public financing.The debt from the arena was so crushing that he sold all the future revenues from the building to another company, which gave him a shortterm cash boost but essentially ensured the Blazers would lose money for the foreseeable future.

Now Allen wants to sell, but he needs to include the arena in the deal to get anyone interested, and its new owners have proven prickly. Meanwhile, the focus on financial matters has taken attention away from the product on the floor, where the Blazers mismanaged themselves to the league’s worst record this past season and look set to repeat the feat in 2006-07.

All that is troubling, but the real problem arises now that Allen is selling the team and no buyer has stepped forward. The Blazers will end up operating with their hands tied behind their backs in free agency, because Allen’s people will want to show a cleaned-up balance sheet to prospective buyers. Not that it would matter anyway – free agents will be reluctant to join an organization that’s about to change its whole management team, as usually happens after a franchise sale.

At least the Blazers know who their owner is – at the moment.The Hawks could only wish for such certainty. Atlanta’s splintered management group suffered another setback two weeks ago when a judge ruled that estranged owner Steve Belkin had the right to repurchase the team (as well as the NHL’s Trashers and Atlanta’s Philips Arena) at a bargain price from the rest of the group.

Of course, that hardly settles things. The rest of the owners – known as Atlanta Spirit – will continue to operate the team while they appeal the ruling, a process which could take a year or more. As such, the team is effectively in limbo for the foreseeable future. Because of the disputed ownership, financial decisions may need to be approved by a judge, which would grind the free agent process to a halt. Considering the Hawks were expected to be major players this off-season, that could deliver another crushing blow to the club’s halting rebuilding effort.

Then there are the Bobcats. Michael Jordan’s recent purchase of an ownership stake in the team may seem like good news for the struggling expansion franchise, but I’m not so sure. Jordan’s ownership stake also includes a role in personnel decisions, and that makes things problematic for general manager Bernie Bickerstaff.

Bickerstaff had carte blanche to build the team up until now,but as of now he’ll have to answer to Jordan. That creates uncertainly on multiple levels. For starters, how will player agents and opposing general managers feel about completing deals with Bickerstaff, knowing that Jordan is the one with the real decision-making power and could put the kibosh on all their hard work? And as a result, how many of them will end up doing an end run around Bickerstaff entirely and talking directly with the man in charge?

This latest muddle in the Queen City is hardly the first. The Bobcats were expected to struggle on the court, of course, but their off-court woes have been more surprising.The franchise has struggled to get the fan base interested, even though it’s the same city that supported the now-departed Hornets to the tune of 10 straight years on top of the league’s attendance charts.

Part of the problem is absentee ownership – ‘Cats owner Robert Johnson is based in Washington D.C. and has a great many other business interests demanding his attention. Jordan won’t help in that department, as he plans on staying in Chicago. And as much as his name adds to the team’s luster, his track record is hardly spectacular. As general manager of the Wizards, Jordan was most famous for the botched drafting of Kwame Brown with the first overall pick in 2001 and the trading of Richard Hamilton to Detroit.

Thus, the Blazers, Bobcats, and Hawks all figure to be relatively inert during the summer,despite each having a desperate need for more talent. That’s a far worse state of affairs than anything even the Knicks can dream up. While New York fans might have welcomed that problem last summer instead of the deals for Jerome James and Eddy Curry, at least the Knicks have a fighting chance of emerging from their malaise.

That’s not the case in Portland, Charlotte, and Atlanta, at least until they sort out who’s in charge. For fans of those three clubs, the words “wait til next year” will never have rung so true.

Mr. Hollinger is the author of the 2005-06 Pro Basketball Forecast. He can be reached at jhollinger@nysun.com.