NBA commissioner David Stern thinks the Sacramento Kings' long-running effort to get a new arena needs a fresh start and a new leader.

Stern is taking charge of the Kings' quest for a replacement for Arco Arena, he announced Wednesday.

Kings owners Joe and Gavin Maloof met with Stern in New York this week to request the commissioner's help after a ballot proposal for a sales-tax increase to help fund a potential new arena was soundly rejected by local voters last week.

The billionaire Maloofs' relationship with Sacramento has grown increasingly frosty despite their team's wild popularity, so Stern acquiesced to their request to take an unprecedented leadership role in the quest for a public/private partnership that can fund a replacement for Arco, perhaps the NBA's most run-down venue.

"We will examine every potential option (and) meet with anybody who may be helpful to understand the situation," Stern said in a conference call. "Given the history of the city and the Maloofs, we just refuse to accept the proposition that there can't be a way, given what we think are our collective wills."

Though Stern still has no specifics of any possible plans, he claimed the Maloofs have no desire to leave Sacramento, where they drew their 317th consecutive sellout crowd for their game against Memphis on Wednesday night.

"We're going to get it done somehow," Stern said in response to fans' fears that the Kings might leave for Las Vegas, Anaheim or other destinations. "Although I recognize the endgame in situations like this, I think it's so far away that we really have a renewed opportunity to have a fresh look at situations like this."

Stern cited the league's efforts to secure an arena for the expansion Charlotte Bobcats as the only similar situation he has encountered during his incredibly successful tenure in charge of the NBA.

He sees his intervention as a way to cool emotions riled by the campaign for the ballot measures, which failed massively with little support from the NBA or the Kings. Stern began his efforts with a phone call to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger this week, and he plans to visit Sacramento in December for additional meetings with local government.

The Maloofs rescued the Kings from moribund mediocrity when they purchased a controlling interest in the club in 1999, fielding eight straight playoff teams built by president of basketball operations Geoff Petrie.

But the bachelor Maloof brothers' high-living image hurt them in conservative Sacramento while they sought arena funding in recent years.

The billionaires, who have extensive business interests in liquor distribution, banking and the Palms casino in Las Vegas, have been condemned for seeking any public funding at all for a proposed multi-use arena in downtown Sacramento or north of town near Arco Arena.

They were castigated by local taxpayers' groups and small-business owners during the campaign for the ballot measures, which they didn't actively support. Opponents even claimed to be outraged when four Maloof brothers filmed a commercial for the Carl's Jr. fast-food chain in which they chased their burgers with a $6,000 bottle of wine.

Stern realizes the Maloofs are stuck in an internecine struggle that requires outside help.

"If it really matters that someone did a commercial for a hamburger and people are going to (use that motivation for) a vote on a facility that's going to be around for the next 30 years, then it got too overheated," Stern said.

Stern publicly said he wouldn't have voted for the proposals because of their inexact nature, and he hopes the league's efforts will be more focused and better received.

"We don't come in with a preconceived notion or a specific timetable," Stern said. "We're going to put a lot of person-hours into it, but we're not setting any real or imagined deadlines. We need to assess the amount of work that has to be done ... and we want to do it free of some of the rhetoric that accompanied the last few months."