Former NBA Commissioner Stern dies
at 77, made league 'truly global brand'
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[January 02, 2020]
By Frank Pingue
(Reuters) - Former National Basketball
Association Commissioner David Stern, who oversaw explosive growth
in the popularity of the game during his 30-year tenure, died on
Wednesday at the age of 77, the league said.
Stern, the NBA's longest-serving commissioner before being succeeded
by Adam Silver on Feb. 1, 2014, had been in serious condition after
emergency surgery on Dec. 12 in New York following a sudden brain
hemorrhage.
"Every member of the NBA family is the beneficiary of David’s
vision, generosity and inspiration," Silver, who worked with Stern
for 22 years, said in a statement.
"Because of David, the NBA is a truly global brand."
Under Stern, the NBA experienced extraordinary growth, with seven
new franchises - including expansion to Canada in 1995 - a more than
30-fold increase in revenue, a dramatic gain in national TV exposure
and the launch of the Women's National Basketball Association and
NBA Development League.
He also had a role in many other initiatives that helped shape the
league, including a drug policy, salary-cap system and dress code.
"Without David Stern, the NBA would not be what it is today," former
Chicago Bulls superstar and current Charlotte Hornets owner Michael
Jordan said in a statement.
"He guided the league through turbulent times and grew the league
into an international phenomenon."
National Football League Commissioner Roger Goodell remembered Stern
as "a driving force in sports for decades."
TRANSFORMED NBA
Stern's greatest accomplishment as commissioner is widely considered
to be the way he transformed the NBA, once largely an unknown
commodity outside the United States, into a globally televised
powerhouse.
Under Stern's leadership, the league opened 13 global NBA offices
and became in 1990 the first U.S. professional sports league to
stage a regular-season game outside North America, when the Phoenix
Suns played the Utah Jazz in Japan.
"David Stern was the most important non-player/non-coach who ever
passed through the NBA and it’s not really close," Bill Simmons,
broadcaster and author of "The Book of Basketball: The NBA," said on
Twitter.
"David Stern earned and deserved inclusion in our land of giants,"
the National Basketball Players Association added in a statement.
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NBA Commissioner David Stern holds a news conference before Game 1
of the NBA Finals basketball playoff in Miami, Florida June 6, 2013.
REUTERS/Andrew Innerarity/File Photo
Current Los Angeles Lakers star, LeBron James, a three-time NBA
champion, praised Stern for changing the lives of so many young
adults, and "more importantly your vision to make our game become
worldwide, a vision only you could make happen."
Bill Russell, who won 11 championships in 13 years with the Boston
Celtics long before Stern became commissioner, said in a tweet: "He
changed so many lives. David was a great innovator and made the game
we love what it is today. This is a horrible loss."
Another retired NBA star, Shaquille O'Neal, called Stern: "The best
commissioner to ever do it."
"We lost a legend," said Germany's Dirk Nowitzki, a 14-time all-star
with the Dallas Mavericks.
SPECIAL MOMENTS
Asked to name his most cherished courtside moment, Stern, in a 2014
interview with the New York Times, pointed to a photograph of him
presenting Magic Johnson with the most valuable player trophy at the
1992 All-Star Game, months after Johnson retired from the Los
Angeles Lakers on disclosing he had contracted the virus that causes
AIDS.
The 1992 "Dream Team" - the first U.S. Olympic men's basketball
squad to include active players from the NBA - was another special
moment.
"This much-maligned group of players and sport, on the march to the
gold medal stand, being feted like a combination of the Bolshoi, the
Philharmonic and the Beatles," Stern said.
Johnson remembered that journey on Wednesday: "When David allowed me
to play in the 1992 All Star Game in Orlando and then play for the
Olympic Dream Team, we were able to change the world," he said on
Twitter.
Stern also presided over four NBA lockouts, including two that
resulted in shortened seasons in 1998-99 and 2011.
Stern, who had remained affiliated with the NBA and held the title
of commissioner emeritus, was inducted into the Naismith Memorial
Basketball Hall of Fame in 2014 and the FIBA Hall of Fame in 2016.
(Reporting by Frank Pingue in Toronto; Additional reporting and
writing by Gene Cherry in North Carolina; Editing by David Gregorio,
Peter Cooney and Tom Hogue)
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