Has there ever been another sports commissioner who was remembered so fondly in death that was hated while he was alive as David J. Stern? Ol' "He kept the trains running on time"-ass bastard.
[SPOARTS!] Comments that don't warrant their own thread 2017-2025
- Thread starter Mr. S£im Citrus
- Start date
Padrino
All-Star
It is a fascinating dynamic. I don't have particularly fond memories of Stern's tenure. I'm gonna chalk it up to "things were better when I was whatever" nostalgia. And unlike many, I actually approve of much of what Silver has accomplished in the post. I like that he takes big swings, as much as any generally conservative professional sports league is willing to take a swing, anyway.
That's the thing: they weren't better. The nostalgia is almost entirely based on the way that people (read: not me) deify Michael Jordan. And Stern gets, like, transitive property credit for the league being "better," just because everybody loved Jordan so much, by virtue of him being the man in charge.
If the NBA Cup had been created in 1984, all these people ****ting on it would love it, because they would have seen all of their faves trying to kill each other to win it. It would have mattered to them simply because it would have mattered to the players that mattered to them. Like, there's a zero percent chance that anybody could have convinced Magic Johnson and Larry Bird and Michael Jordan that the Cup didn't matter.
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Padrino
All-Star
I don't disagree; I was simply stating that those who do look back at Stern's tenure with a great deal of nostalgia view that as a "better time" for the league. I don't personally possess such a view. I liked that the game was more physical, that there were fewer free throw merchants because the game wasn't called as tightly, and that there was less emphasis on three-point shooting. But I don't necessarily consider it a "better" version of NBA basketball overall.
As you said, Stern "kept the trains running on time" and mostly rode the natural success of back-to-back-to-back waves of Magic v. Bird, Jordan/Pippen, and Kobe/Shaq. Other than the most marketable stars in each era, there were just fewer dynamic players and fewer dynamic personalities, as well as less talent and less skill amongst the league's middle class. And when bigger personalities did come along (and hip hop started to assert its influence on the game), Stern did a lot to try and stifle that.
The league did become much more commercially successful under Stern's watch, and I do think he deserves a lot of credit for trying to grow the game globally. For me, that's the greatest feather in his cap. Jokic. SGA. Luka. Giannis. Wemby. The NBA's best are no longer American-born players. That's largely because of David Stern's global focus, on which Adam Silver has smartly doubled down. But still, for all the credit I'm willing to give David Stern, I find the NBA of 2025 much more compelling than the NBA of 1995. Or even 2005.
Yeah, I think the Cup and the Play-In Tournament are interesting examples of Silver-led innovations that attempt to wring value out of the NBA as an entertainment product. In an era of massive evolution in the media landscape, it's harder for a league with a long 82-game season to stand out. Ten years from now, the NBA Cup, in particular, is just going to be a regular fixture and highlight of the early months of NBA action. People may not care about it a lot, but those Cup games are the best that November/December have to offer, from a competitive standpoint. That matters.
I think the NBA's attempts at reconfiguring All-Star Weekend, and the All-Star Game itself, have underwhelmed. But again, I appreciate that Silver and co. are taking big swings to see what's possible with a league like this at a time of great upheaval in entertainment industries of all kinds. Silver seems less interested in just keeping the trains running and more interested in pushing slowly and gently on assumed norms, which is laudable considering just how conservative every professional sports leagues' Board of Governors tends to be.
I respectfully disagree with this; I give Stern no credit for growing the game globally. The NBA grew globally because they had arguably the biggest international sports stars, at a time when they held a comparative monopoly for international sports coverage. Outside of soccer, there were no international sports figures that were as big as basketball players, and the very biggest of those were in the NBA. I won't give Stern credit for Michael Jordan being a global icon: he was just the guy in the chair. Anybody could have taken the Ferrari out of the garage, anyone would have. Stern would have to have been Fredo Corleone levels of incompetent to **** that up.
Ironically, I think that the decline of All-Star Weekend is the natural conclusion to the star-making and global expansion that you wanted to give Stern credit for: I think that the inevitable outcome of building a sports league around stars is that the stars will become so invested in preserving their respective brands that they're not willing to risk any potential damage to their brands, even perceived damage, for an exhibition. And I think that, unless they can find at least 4 or 5 more guys like Wembanyama (in terms of his "I want to kill all of you!" attitude), nothing is going to change until the league can figure out something that the players would want more than they don't want to risk embarrassment.
Padrino
All-Star
This strikes me as extremely uncharitable, given David Stern's involvement in the 1992 "Dream Team" Olympic formation, his push for international pre-season and regular season games, his focus on heavily investing in the Chinese market, and the establishment of NBA offices in countries around the world. Like the guy or not, his entire business strategy from the late-90s until his retirement was focused on growing the game globally. There's just no way around acknowledging that. Basketball is now one of the most popular sports in China specifically because of Stern's groundwork in the country.
I don't disagree here, but I'd credit social media's rise and the accessibility of professional athletes to their fans as much as anything else. You don't need to be in LA or NY anymore to "grow your brand"; you just have to be shrewd in how you wield your online presence. Personally, I hate that everyone and their mother has a "brand" these days, but the social internet has been completely and utterly subsumed by monetization, and the league hasn't figured out how to turn All-Star Weekend into a brand extension of the stars who are named to the teams. If they ever manage to crack that particular nut, All-Star Weekend might find its spark again.
There's only like 3 or 4 beloved Sports Commissioners in my time: Rozelle, Tagliabue, Ueberoth and maybe Giammati. Then Stern.
Almost all of them except for Rozelle who was immediately succeeded by Tagliabue and the thing where Giammati succeeded Ueberoth and promptly died after banning Pete Rose for life which somehow did this weird sainthood thing, were succeeded by the most hated commissioners in their sport and almost all of them have damaged fan relations or done other things to lose audience.
Notable about Stern though - not only did he gift us Silver, he gave Gary Bettman to the NHL and his tenure has largely been a disaster for old time hockey fans. I guess you could argue old time hockey was maybe not the best thing in the world and the sport is better off in its current form, but I loved old time hockey just like I loved territory and attitude era wrasslin.
Almost all of them except for Rozelle who was immediately succeeded by Tagliabue and the thing where Giammati succeeded Ueberoth and promptly died after banning Pete Rose for life which somehow did this weird sainthood thing, were succeeded by the most hated commissioners in their sport and almost all of them have damaged fan relations or done other things to lose audience.
Notable about Stern though - not only did he gift us Silver, he gave Gary Bettman to the NHL and his tenure has largely been a disaster for old time hockey fans. I guess you could argue old time hockey was maybe not the best thing in the world and the sport is better off in its current form, but I loved old time hockey just like I loved territory and attitude era wrasslin.
QWERTYLICIOUS
Starter
The NHL can definitely go away from the shootout, bring back the 20-minute OT period during the regular season, and reintroduce the tie. Oh, and they can also go back to the old playoff seeding format, and go away from the current division format BS.
And give me the likes of Hulk Hogan, Bret Hart, Mach Man, Mr. Perfect, The Texas Tornado, The American Dream, The Legion of Doom, The Natural Disasters (to name a select few) over the crap we have today.
QWERTYLICIOUS
Starter
OT when I started watching was 5 minutes of 5 on 5, with ties. I liked that. Made the standings table simple too. 2-0-1.
None of this weird nonsense with points for losing. I kinda get why association football uses the 3-0-1 table but that's because teams played for the draw. Nobody plays for a draw in hockey.
I'm good with that.
QWERTYLICIOUS
Starter
Yeah, the OTL point is dumb. Oh, and so is 3-on-3 hockey in OT.
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I could live with the 4-4 but I hate 3 on 3. I think they even did that in a college final, possibly the Beanpot which is semi-tolerable but even that is way too high stakes imho (I say because whatever this game was, BU definitely lost).
I was gonna let this slide, but I can't... I can't believe that you're still stanning for Terry at your big age, SMH.
You'll be happy to know then that a certain assclown social media influencer turned boxer showed up to his fight tonight in the red and yellow and it did not end well for him.
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