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

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.