Thursday, October 25th, 2012 at 1:40 pm  |  61 responses

NBA Commissioner David Stern to Step Down on February 1, 2014


David Stern’s retirement plans have been a poorly-kept secret of late. Following multiple media reports, the NBA confirmed today that Stern is stepping down as of February 1, 2014. Deputy Commissioner Adam Silver will take over.

Per the press release:

David Stern spent nearly 30 years growing the NBA, turning a league that couldn’t even get its championship series on live prime-time TV into a projected $5 billion a year industry. Confident the NBA is in good shape and certain he has found someone who can make it even better, Stern is ready to end one of the most successful and impactful careers in sports history. Stern will retire as commissioner Feb. 1, 2014, 30 years to the day after taking charge of the league, and be replaced by Deputy Commissioner Adam Silver.

“I decided that things are in great shape and there’s an organization in place that will ultimately be led by Adam that is totally prepared to take it to the next level,” Stern said.

Stern said he wouldn’t leave until he knew there was a successor ready, and he has repeatedly said Silver is ready for that role. Stern said he would always remain available to take a call and help the league. “Life is a journey and it’s been a spectacular journey,” Stern said. “Each step along the way there are things that you have to do, things that you maybe wish you hadn’t done. But I don’t keep that list, and so I’m totally pleased and I’m particularly pleased with the transition of which we’re now embarking.”

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  • Drig

    Fake glasses and tight jeans…….God they’re an eyesore….

  • danpowers

    not really. e.g. here in germany the nba is not pushing anything neither. during the last decade we had no nba basketball on free tv even though we had dirk. since the 90s bball stagnates and its an issue among basketball fans. when one of our leading nba journalist addressed this issue in an interview stern said “i am not concerned about that, you got nba on pay tv and you got the league pass”. smh i wonder how this is supposed to reach kids then? they dont even try to spread it broadly. i just guess they concentrate on china with that

  • SWIFTboy

    Say what you will about David Stern, but be happy you don’t have Dana White as the figurehead of your favourite sport. Trust me, it could be much, much, much worse.

  • Max

    “Its about damn time!” – Lebron James.

  • Kilo

    I am not old enough to remeber the NBA being tape delyaed, but I do remeber the dress code and the Chris Paul veto among other things that made me somone that is not a fan of Stern. I have to respect what he did before I was born though or the NBA would be a sceond class leauge.

  • L Dribble

    That and, if you believe the very good Magic/Bird doco, it was seen as a black man’s game. The documentary suggests that Bird got white people interested in the game again – I’m not versed on that period as I only started watching in 1992 when it was wall-to-wall Jordan.

  • pposse

    anyone who loves nba basketball can do this job

  • BETCATS

    The only reason the NBA even is broadcasted on so many different channels is because of the deals Stern made. I recommend reading how he did it and the methods he used before you simply write him off as “players playing the game make it exciting enough.” Wilt Chamberlain’s 100 point game wasn’t recorded and was in an arena that only held slight above 4,000 people in it. I’m pretty sure that was an exciting moment in NBA history. Compare it to Kobe Bryant’s 81 point game: played in arena that can hold up to 19,000 people and televised on multiple channels in two countries. How do you think things got that way? It wasn’t magic (double entendre!) it was business. Stern isn’t some idiot who simply plugged things in to a circuit board and made money – he’s the best commissioner in modern sports and shaped the NBA into what it is today.

  • http://twitter.com/Neitel_17 Nathan Agosto
  • Redd

    To think only Stern could have done that is ignorant, by theory anyone could have.

  • BETCATS

    That is a statement with no foundation and is simply not true. Be careful when tossing around the word ignorant…

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