David Stern: The end of an era, but the legacy remains

David Stern

On this day, 71 years ago, was born a man who took the NBA from a moderately successful minor league in the USA to a wildly popular, lucrative, global corporation. David Stern, the outgoing commissioner, has achieved this monumental feat in 30 long years. He was not just the greatest marketing strategist in the league, he was also one of the toughest, smartest and most resilient human beings to have ever been associated with the NBA.

Stern announced in October 2012 that he’d be giving up the post of the NBA commissioner on February 1st, 2014 – 30 years to the day after he took over in 1984.

Stern was not always the most popular man with the laws and regulations he enacted. He underwent numerous public trials, but always put the NBA’s best interests ahead of his own. When he retires, his legacy will live on through the impact he had on the game.

Here’s the story of how an ordinary lawyer, who entered the league as an outside counsel, became the league’s most influential personality.

Brand Image

Stern with Michael Jordan

When Stern took over in 1984, the NBA was in transition. The stars of yesteryear (Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell, Oscar Robertson) had long since retired. They say fortune favours the brave. This is certainly true in the case of Stern.

As fate would have it, 1984 saw the entry of four of the NBA’s biggest superstars - Michael Jordan, Hakeem Olajuwon, Charles Barkley and John Stockton. Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, the future superstars, were just getting acclimatised to the NBA. The stage was set for an exemplary leader to carry the NBA’s legacy forward, and one was found in David Stern.

The main problem with the NBA’s image was its rampant drug abuse. Charles Barkley summed it up best:

“Back in the day it was like, ‘We got a bunch of young black guys making a good living and smoking pot’. That was the NBA’s image…That’s a hard product to market.”

Stern realised the importance of this issue and he enacted the league’s first drug testing program in 1983 when he was the Vice-President. After he took over in 1984, he put his policy into practice.

From 1986 to 1995, the world watched as the league got cleaned up. Eight players got suspended for drug usage. Once Stern had controlled drug abuse, he turned his attention to the fiscal aspect.

Stern realised that he had a phenomenal set of athletes in the league and decided to make the most of that. He supervised the transition of the league’s players into the Olympics.

The 1992 “Dream team” comprised of supreme talents like Bird, Johnson and Jordan. Stern’s marketing of this team caused them to receive a stupendous welcome in Spain. Their gold medal didn’t hurt the league’s ratings either.

He realised that fans loved to see the players score. To capitalise on this, and to increase the on-screen appeal of the NBA, Stern instituted several regulations on what defenders could and couldn’t do without being called for a foul. While this curtailed defensive prospects, it certainly increased TV ratings. As offensive production increased, people starting flocking to the arenas and the game’s popularity grew.

These changes in the image of the NBA increased the revenue. The league was worth $12 billion in 2012, compared to the relatively trivial $400 million it was worth in 1984. Unfortunately, with more money, came more problems.

Cultural and perception differences

When the league’s saviours retired to spend quality time with their family, the NBA saw a dramatic shift in culture in the new crop of players.

It was the late 1990s, and the hip hop revolution took the league’s players by storm. Most of the league’s brightest stars, like Allen Iverson, had risen from the country’s toughest regions while the ticket holders were relatively more well to-do. This caused immediate friction between players and fans.

Allen Iversen

The new crop of players was very different from the predecessors in terms of fashion and attitude: Clothes got baggier, and bling jewellery and caps became popular. Tattoos were a form of showing how tough a player was.

While all this didn’t affect the players’ performance on the court, the general public started calling these players “criminals”. Tensions ran high and were quickly reaching their boiling point, especially during press conferences.

Dress Code

Stern realised that most of the players were being perceived as immature by the fans. To combat this and the above mentioned cultural differences, Stern implemented the controversial dress code. The new dress code banned fashions most often associated with hip-hop culture, specifically: jerseys, jeans, hats, d0-rags, t-shirts, large jewellery, sneakers and Timberland style boots. Players were required to wear “business casual attire” whenever they engaged in league or team activities.

While this was perfectly sound logic, some of the players didn’t see this the same way. Allen Iverson felt Stern was targeting him and players like himself.

“They’re targeting my generation—the hip-hop generation. You can put a murderer in a suit and he’s still a murderer.”

Others though, felt it was just a part of the job description. LeBron James had this to say on the matter:

“It’s not a big deal, not to me. We are going to have fun, but this is a job and we should look like we’re going to work.”

Stern though, looked at it from a different angle. He felt the code was just to protect the players from unnecessary scrutiny.

“Sometimes I worry that our players’ intensity can be misconstrued and their effort can be misconstrued. They are the most intense, the most dedicated…We’d like to use our convening power to have people focus on this game and our great players, who they are and how they play, rather than their variance from some norm…Being neatly attired in a certain way, that’s going to be our norm.”

Allegations against Stern

From fixing games, to forcing Jordan to retire, Stern has been accused of everything. In 2007, he faced his most damning accusation from a NBA employee.

Veteran referee Tim Donaghy pleaded guilty to two felony charges of engaging in wire fraud and transmitting betting information to outsiders. While this in itself is shocking, his next allegations rocked the basketball world.

He said that he had received orders from the league office to avoid calling technical fouls on star athletes lest it should hinder ticket sales. He also said that two officials fixed Game 6 of an undisclosed 2002 playoff series in order to extend it to seven games.

Stern voraciously defended himself and called Donaghy a “rogue, isolated criminal”. Stern’s vehement denial ensured that he didn’t get caught in the crossfire. However, in order to ensure that this did not happen again, Stern contacted the FBI, DEA and Homeland Security to make sure that the officials were constantly monitored.

The 2004 Debacle

The Indiana Pacers v Detroit Pistons incident

On November 19, 2004, Ben Wallace and Ron Artest got into a fistfight during the last minute of the game between the Pistons and the Pacers. The brawl spilled into the stands and soon, the fans of both the teams were exchanging blows on national TV.

A fan took this opportunity and threw a beer at Ron Artest. Artest stormed the stands and this was one of the ugliest incidents in NBA history.

However, as always, the commissioner had an answer. This is the moment when he established himself as the greatest commissioner in the NBA. He dealt out swift, strict punishments to all players involved in the fight. Ron Artest suffered the brunt of the commissioner’s anger as he was forced to sit out the following 73 games. Instead of making reasoned statements in press conferences, Stern acted.

Since the players weren’t the only ones who were out of line, Stern did whatever he could to control the crowd. Alcohol was not to be sold after the 3rd quarter of every game. The Arena personnel were given intensive training on crowd control.

Age limit on draft picks

In 2006, Stern enacted yet another ground breaking regulation. All players who wanted to play for the NBA needed to turn 19 during the calendar year of the draft. All foreign players had to have been removed from high school for one year before they applied for the draft.

Stern told The Wall Street Journal that the restriction was put in place for two reasons:

“One, so you can see them play against better competition. And two, so they get an extra year to sort of mature. Kevin Durant said that if he hadn’t spent that year at Texas, he probably would’ve been roaming around malls when he came to the NBA.”

Stern’s reasoning behind this act was that for every Kobe Bryant or Carmelo Anthony or LeBron James, there were a 100 Lenny Cookes. In order to prevent the players from ruining their careers, he implemented this act.

NBA Cares

The NBA has long been seen as a league filled with hard-nosed athletes. In order to make them seem more kind, Stern designed the NBA Cares program. In this program, the players take a humanitarian approach and do community service in order to improve the society. This went a long way in improving the NBA’s image.

The final chapter

NBA Commissioner David Stern announces retirement

The above mentioned points are the highlights of Stern’s career. Stern was a brilliant strategist and he dedicated his life to the NBA and the sport of basketball. He has popularised the game to an incredible extent.

The NBA is currently televised in 215 countries and it brings in a revenue of $930 million a year in the form of TV revenues.

Real life proof of the impact he had on the game: here I am, an 18-year-old in India, a country heavily dominated by cricket, writing a piece of tribute for a front office man who made it possible for me to get to know about this sport.

He’s already picked his successor – Adam Silver. Silver’s been trained for this post since 2006. Despite the amount of training he has received, he’ll be faced with the daunting prospect of filling this legend’s shoes.

Stern said that he’s not concerned with the way his final chapter reads:

“Well, I’m not a big believer in the ‘L’ word – legacy. I just want people to say that he steered the good ship NBA through all kinds of interesting times, some choppy waters, some extraordinary opportunities, and on his watch, the league grew in popularity, became a global phenomenon, and the owners and the players and the fans did very well.”

Judging by his list of accomplishments, one would be hard pressed to disagree with any of that.