The NBA All-Star Game is an annual gathering of some of the most gifted people on the planet — where some of the biggest and brightest among us shine.
But so often in years past at All-Star Weekend, the event that carried the most weight — that was most anticipated by insiders — was the annual “state of the league” address delivered to a rapt gathering of journalists by long-time league commissioner David Stern.
Stern grew up in New Jersey, the son of a Manhattan delicatessen owner and New York Knicks fan, and stood perhaps five-foot-seven inches tall.
But he commanded the room and the sport, became one of basketball’s biggest stars, and was eventually recognized as perhaps the greatest commissioner in all of North American sports.
“A Stern press conference was always must-see,” Jack McCallum, the Hall-of-Fame basketball writer who covered the NBA in 1980s for Sports Illustrated, said. “He always veered just far enough off-topic–maybe an insult lobbed at a reporter, kind of good-naturedly; maybe a gentle shot at a coach–that it was interesting.
“What I liked about his conferences was to see his brain in action. His favourite expression was … ‘And by the way.’ When he said that, you knew that something else had just occurred to him and he was going off on that tangent. He was almost impossible to stop once he got rambling because he would always be three steps ahead of the posse.”
Stern’s addresses at All-Star Weekend consistently provided a framework for the future of the league he ran with a broad imagination and fierce discipline. The same was true of sessions he held at the NBA Finals or the NBA draft or Summer League.
When Stern spoke, people listened.
And there was a lot to talk about.
Over Stern’s unprecedented 30-year run leading the NBA, he presided over an enterprise that expanded from 23 teams to 30; that went from having NBA Finals games broadcast on a tape-delayed basis to eventually becoming a broadcast property worth $24 billion. He saw the NBA go from being a league followed mainly in the United States and featuring almost exclusively American players to a global sport with 108 international players drawn from 38 countries to start the 2019–20 season.
His relationship with the NBA began when he was hired by the powerhouse New York law firm Proskauer Rose – the league’s outside counsel – following law school in 1966. The NBA in its current form as an international cultural and taste-making force was unrecognizable.
“The league was in survival mode most of my early years in the NBA,” said Wayne Embry, the Toronto Raptors senior basketball advisor, whose association with the NBA began in 1958 as a player and continued as an executive from 1972 until today. “Attendance wasn’t great and a lot of owners weren’t doing very well.”
Stern joined the NBA as general counsel in 1978 and was promoted to executive vice president with a large role in league operations in 1980 before taking over from Larry O’Brien as commissioner in 1984.
The league’s trajectory has been almost exclusively upwards ever since, bolstered by the arrival of superstar talent such as Michael Jordan and a growing platform that help them turn into crossover icons.
“He was an innovator. He thought ahead. He thought big,” said Embry. “Marketing was very key to him. The league office brought more people in with that concept and each team did, too. He took the product and made it what it is today.
“He was just a terrific commissioner.”
Among his first major policy initiatives — even before taking the top job — were implementing drug testing for players after a number of early-1980s scandals had tarnished the league’s image and helping draft the first Collective Bargaining Agreement that included a cap on overall player salaries, bringing some cost certainty to a then-fragile league economy.
Most importantly, he helped develop a partnership between the players and owners based on a revenue-sharing model that set the standard for other leagues to eventually follow.
“He learned how to bring the players association and the owners together for a common cause. That was big,” says Embry. “The owners were very protective [of their revenues], but it can’t be one way. The players play the game.”
With a structure in place, Stern set out to make the NBA the most telegenic league possible. He recognized the power of stardom — that the immediacy of the NBA game was unparalleled in sports, and that targeting a younger audience with better in-arena presentation, lighting and music could be a point of differentiation.
For decades, sports had been about selling tickets and opening the doors, expecting that would be enough. Under Stern, the NBA became about using the league’s stars and the quality of its competition to build brands and create an entertainment option that reached outside of the average sports fan and into Hollywood, music and fashion.
He also was early to recognize the potential of growing the NBA brand outside of the U.S. In the mid-1980s Stern himself would get on the phone to negotiate international television deals. When FIBA wanted to throw the Olympics open to U.S. professionals, Stern in turn threw his weight behind it, ushering in the Dream Team era for the 1992 Games in Barcelona. He was the commissioner who oversaw the league’s expansion into Canada, opened league offices overseas, and made NBA tours throughout Europe and Asia an annual occurrence.
And as cable, video and digital became ubiquitous under Stern’s watch, he recognized the benefits of having the league be seen by more eyes in more formats. The NBA was at the forefront of having games and highlights available on phones and tablets. The league has enjoyed a massive social-media presence because from the beginning the NBA allowed highlights from their games to be shared freely.
“David Stern is the No. 1 force, the No. 1 reason why this league is where it is today,” Miami Heat President Pat Riley told USA Today when Stern retired in February 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.
“Over that span of time, things don’t change because they’re coincidences. They don’t. There’s somebody at the top who is going to eliminate what is bad and market what is good. He was a very forceful, very pragmatic visionary.”
Stern could be charming and witty in public, but was known for being almost tyrannical at times in private. He knew what he wanted and was unafraid to forgo compromise. Question him at a Board of Governors meeting and prepare to be challenged.
“His management style was anyone who questions him would get a chance to experience his wrath, and I did a few times,” said Embry, whose tenure as general manager of the Cleveland Cavaliers from 1986 to 1999 paralleled Stern’s rise. “I’d rather not say why because he and I mended our differences, but he was pretty headstrong in his beliefs.
“He had compassion for people, too, but if he believed something should be one way, he stepped to it and he wasn’t afraid to let you know it. I never questioned him [personally], but I would ask him generalized questions and I think I upset him a couple of times, but it was all for the common good of the league.”
Stern was able to run such a tight ship in part because he helped make so much money for everyone — players and owners alike. When Jerry Reinsdorf bought the Chicago Bulls in 1985, he paid $16 million. According to Forbes, the franchise is worth $2.9 billion today.
When Stern became commissioner in 1984, CBS was paying $22 million for the league’s broadcast rights. Shortly after Stern retired, the league’s new broadcast deal – which encompassed cable and digital rights – was worth $2.6-billion annually. Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James will earn $36 million on the floor and several multiples of that off the floor this season while the average NBA salary 2019–20 this season has increased to $7.7 million.
“He knew what the league needed at the time it needed it, and he was not afraid to convince the owners about what he thought,” says Embry. “He was very adamant in the way he did it – and people didn’t always like it – but he gained a lot of respect because of what he accomplished.”
Stern died on Jan. 1, 2020 as a result of a brain hemorrhage. He is survived by his wife and two children.
He moved comfortably and confidently among giants and left the biggest mark of all.
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