Grantland: A Commissioner’s Legacy
http://grantland.com...sioners-legacy/
And, anyway, that’s the first time I ever saw David Stern, who already had turned the NBA into something that attracted the random rock-and-roll star and was on his way to turning it into so much more, for good and for ill. So much was still in the future. Michael Jordan was just coming into his own after spending his formative NBA years on a team where the second-best player was Orlando Woolridge. Yao Ming was merely a tall kid in China. LeBron James was about 3 years old and probably had received only 15 recruiting letters. Oklahoma City was a gas station. The All-Star Game was only then becoming a Weekend.
So, handed a remarkable turn of fortune that he helped engineer, what did David Stern do? Well, he grew the brand, as the marketing people say, and he grew it astonishingly well. The value of the franchises has increased tenfold. There are four television networks broadcasting NBA games worldwide. He has managed to stay ahead of the curve technologically, moving the league into the digital age more smoothly than was the case with many other American industries. The players make gobs of money. David Stern’s work here is done.
However, it has come at a price. By marrying the NBA to its “corporate partners,” and by doing it so thoroughly and so well, Stern has cost the league much of its soul, in the fullest meaning of the word.
