I know he's a controversial figure. And I know that much of this board is convinced that he hates Houston and will never forgive him for the "basketball reasons" move. But David Stern has been the longest serving, most powerful and most successful commissioner the NBA has ever seen. He took over a league that was floundering in the early 1980s and turned it into a global success. I'm old enough to have followed the NBA during Larry O'Brien's tenure, and I never thought he was a particularly good commissioner. Under his reign, the league was plagued by drugs and fighting. Playoff games — even the NBA finals — were shown at 11:30 on tape delay. When O'Brien retired in 1984, the league honored him by putting his name on the championship trophy. When Mr. Stern retires next year, he deserves the same honor.
I think he has done a good job. We don't see how much the NBA has expanded globally but he is the reason for that as well.
He's grossly underrated. Did some seriously great things for the NBA. The good far outweighs the bad with him.
Business wise he's been great for the NBA. I know there's no way to prove it, but I feel he dipped into basketball affairs in an overreaching way.
So should Tiffany's come up with a new trophy? And Adam Silver will say "Congratulations to the 2013-2014 NBA Champions, Houston Rockets. To accept the David J Stern trophy, Leslie Alexander"?
Why are we upset about Basketball reasons? That ended up benefiting us and new orleans, only one team should be pissed about that.
He changed the game for the worst for me. I guess he did well in globalizing it though... good for the average bandwagon fans.
If global success were the measure, they should have just renamed it the Michael Jordan trophy and be done with it, except the damn guy won't stay retired.
I too get annoyed about that. It was a bad trade for us. Stern only hurt the Laker's on that trade. It's not even close to say otherwise.
Even if this isn't true, the NBA rules he changed and teams he imposed on were made in the interest of maximizing profit and marketability, not for the good of the sport. C.R.E.A.M.!
Well if you like what he's done to the quality of the game, then great for you, breh. I don't like Stern... so what? I acknowledged his success in globalizing the game.
Or the could call it the Auerbach Trophy or the Jackson Trophy or the Auerbach-Jackson Trophy or just the NBA Champions Trophy.
He did a fantastic job marketing the sport worldwide, but I think a lot of it just had to do with the world becoming more digital and tuned in. So it's hard to tell. But the popularity advanced under his watch so you can't argue with that. My issue is that he has severely damaged the integrity of the game, IMO -- no system for officials to review games and try to learn from their mistakes (NFL reviews every game with officials).
Bad idea. David Stern did not save the NBA from the 70's, that honor belongs to Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. Those guys started a riverlry in college that carried over into the NBA. They were both on teams that were fun to watch and absolutely great. Add to the fact that there was some brillient marketing done by advertisers such as Nike and David Stern benifited from great timing. David Stern deserves the honor of going the hell away when he retires and nothing else.
