David Stern, who has been the NBA commissioner for 30 years, announced his retirement today, which will take place on February 1, 2014.

“The Board has selected Adam Silver to succeed me as NBA Commissioner, and I am very pleased with their choice,” Stern said. “As you know, Adam is a world-class business executive who has influenced so many areas of our business during his 20-year tenure with the league, from television, to digital, to international, to merchandising, to sponsorships, to team business, to, of course, labor negotiations. I know that the organization will be in very good hands when Adam becomes Commissioner. What we have achieved together and will continue to achieve is extraordinary – and we will have 15 months to talk about it.”

For a generation of basketball fans, Stern is the only commissioner who has held the position, so the news comes as something of a shock today. Twitter users took to the social media site to talk about it: