David Stern remembered as NBA visionary
Former commissioner Stern led NBA into a sports powerhouse
Former commissioner turned pro basketball into multibillion-dollar business.
Former NBA commissioner David Stern, a visionary who turned the pro basketball league into a popular and global multibillion-dollar business and became one of the best commissioners in pro sports, died Wednesday, the league announced.
He was 77.
Stern suffered a brain hemorrhage on Dec. 12 and had emergency brain surgery.
“For 22 years, I had a courtside seat to watch David in action,” current NBA
Commissioner Adam Silver said in a statement. “He was a mentor and one of my dearest friends. We spent countless hours in the office, at arenas and on planes wherever the game would take us. Like every NBA legend, David had extraordinary talents, but with him it was always about the fundamentals – preparation, attention to detail, and hard work.
“David took over the NBA in 1984 with the league at a crossroads. But over the course of 30 years as commissioner, he ushered in the modern global NBA . ... Because of David, the NBA is a truly global brand – making him not only one of the greatest sports commissioners of all time but also one of the most influential business leaders of his generation.”
He was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2014.
Born on Sept. 22, 1942, Stern was the son of a New York City deli owner and worked at the deli as a kid. He developed a fondness for the Knicks and attended games with his father who used to slip an usher a few bucks in exchange for better seats.
Stern never strayed far from the game. After college at Rutgers and law school at Columbia, Stern began a fivedecade association with the NBA, first as an attorney for Proskauer Rose, a high-powered law firm that represented the NBA. It also happened to be the firm where Silver’s father, Edward,
worked as a labor attorney and chairman.
Stern joined the NBA as general counsel in 1978, became executive vice president in 1980 and commissioner in 1984, beginning a 30-year run in charge of the league until 2014, when Silver took over.
During those 30 years, Stern altered the direction of the NBA in ways that seemed impossible in the mid-1980s, creating lucrative TV deals and corporate sponsorships, a global audience and marketable superstars, starting with Larry Bird and Magic Johnson and continuing with Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant and LeBron James.
“I cannot put into words what the friendship of David Stern has meant to me but many others,” Celtics legend Bill Russell said Wednesday on Twitter. “He changed so many lives.”
Today, players make millions, including some who make more than $35 million a season, and the average franchise is worth about $2 billion, including the Knicks who were valued at more than $4 billion by Forbes in February.
Stern was many things: intelligent, savvy, bold, stubborn, driven, competitive, charming, humorous, kind, biting, forceful and demanding.
“David Stern is the No. 1 force, the No. 1 reason why this league is where it is today,” Heat president Pat Riley told USA TODAY Sports in 2014. “That’s not disrespectful to any one great player in any one era or any owner. This has to do with the leadership of one man . ... He was a very forceful, very pragmatic visionary.”
Stern knew sports marketing. He saw the potential Bird and Johnson had and wanted to make sure basketball fans knew what players like that could do on the basketball court.
Stern also had to fight an uphill battle at the time. The league didn’t have the greatest reputation, hampered by lack of exposure and high-profile drug problems.
Stern, however, made sure fans witnessed a great product on the court and the electric personalities who played the game via TV. He had two great ones in Bird and Magic, who defined much of the NBA in the 1980s with their CelticsLakers rivalry. Isiah Thomas came along, then Jordan and the mesmerizing high-flying, gravity-defying plays on the court captured the attention of fans.
“The way that he took it head on, the way he presented the game to America, he didn’t hide behind anything,” Thomas said. “This is our league. This is who we are. This is who these young men are. Once you get to know them, America will fall in love with the player and the product.
“He was masterful at that.” Stern dreamed of an international audience and helped send pros to the 1992 Olympics where the Dream Team was a major story.
Conversely, foreign-born players wanted to come to the U.S. When the 2019-20 season opened, 108 international players were on NBA rosters compared with 24 in 1994-95. The league is making deeper inroads in Asia and Africa.
A G League team will begin play in Mexico City in 2020.
Stern had his share of setbacks, too. He was part of two lockouts that resulted in lost games in 1998-99 and 2011-12.
The Malice at the Palace brawl between the Pacers, Pistons and fans in Detroit and the Tim Donaghy referee betting scandal also happened on his watch.
The wrath of Stern was unpleasant. Whether it was a team owner, a players’ union official, a player, an NBA staffer or a reporter, Stern chided as he saw fit.
Lakers owner Jeanie Buss said, “He didn’t waste words.”
Stern understood how to navigate difficult times. When Magic Johnson announced he was HIV-positive in 1991, Stern backed Johnson and tried to educate the league and the public at a time when people were frightened of the AIDS epidemic. It was another critical moment in Stern’s career, and he helped break down misconceptions and falsehoods.
The NBA wouldn’t be where it is today without David J. Stern.