With the NBA’s All-Star weekend here, it’ll be interesting to see how many people notice the absence of David Stern, the league’s former commissioner who retired recently, as Stern has been running the league since 1983.
During that time, he’s made some positive changes in the NBA, which is why he’s been elected to the basketball Hall of Fame. The announcement came on Friday while Stern was on vacation with his family.
Adam Silver, who took over for Stern as league commissioner, attended a press conference about the Hall of Fame honor, and said he wanted to be there for Stern when the announcement was read.
“I wanted to be here for David, because I knew he wasn’t in New Orleans this weekend,” explained Silver. “Just to be here to share the experience and then relay it back to him what the feel in the room was.”
In addition, Silver said that Stern would probably be embarrassed about the award, because he’s a guy who doesn’t like to look in the past or talk about yesterday’s accomplishments.
“As I said earlier, while David is a modest guy, I know he was moved by the fact this was all happening so quickly, and he has always told me he doesn’t like to reflect back sort of on his life or his career, but this will certainly force him to. And I know this is an emotional moment for him and it’s an emotional moment for everybody who has worked with him over these years.”
For the most part, the 71-year old Stern was well-liked by the leagues’s players, however some believed he focused on the wrong things, like the whole dress-code controversy that happened a number of years ago, or the accusation that there wasn’t enough diversity in terms of team ownership, but all and all, the former commissioner did make some wonderful changes in the NBA, and took it from an underground sport in the 80s to a television mainstay, and for that, he definitely deserves a spot in the Hall of Fame.
Image via Wikimedia Commons