On Saturday, David Stern retired as NBA commissioner, ending at an even 30 years his tenure as basketball’s leading organisational figure.
I don’t wish to add to the chorus about Stern’s legacy. His tenure is a complicated one that saw the league vastly raise its stature – the oft-cited anecdote is that the league used to broadcast its championship NBA Finals series on tape delay.
But he also rubbed a lot of people the wrong way in his three decades. Google ‘David Stern critics’ and there are over 51 million examples to attest to this.
What is more important, though, is the next 30 years, and what incoming commissioner Adam Silver is going to do with them.
Kenny Smith, a television analyst and former NBA player, made the point on Inside the NBA this weekend that Europe is the way forward for the NBA in the 21st century.
Basketball has the potential to be the No 2 international sport, after football, if it isn’t already. Europe, with its collection of mature domestic clubs and Euroleague, is a natural market to tap. But how?
Smith and the other hosts of the TNT program bandied about the idea of a European division, or perhaps even conference, which is a fascinating concept.
Could the NBA ever get the likes of Real Madrid, Bayern Munich and other leading European clubs to agree to come under its umbrella? If successful, could the model be duplicated in Asia, South America or Africa? Could we see the NBA eventually morph into a truly global giant – the likes of which would be unprecedented even for football – with huge play-offs featuring 40-plus teams?
Well, probably not. But in Stern’s 30 years, the NBA started to scratch the surface of its global potential.
Stern brought the NBA to the world during his tenure, and helped expand the pool of people who actually play basketball.
But now it is now up to Silver to take the next step and make the NBA something more than just the “National” Basketball Association.
jraymond@thenational.ae
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