LeBron James held his index finger aloft, then turned and took a walk nine years in the making.
It's not just the flopping that the NBA is trying to squash.
David Stern took the NBA around the globe in nearly three decades as commissioner, turning what was a second-rate league into a projected $5-billion-a-year industry.
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.
NBA Commissioner David Stern will retire on Feb. 1, 2014, 30 years after he took charge of the league. He will be replaced by Deputy Commissioner Adam Silver.
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.
The NBA is about to act in hopes of stopping the floppers.
All these years later, and especially now with the prospect of a lockout looming large this weekend, it's hard to look at a picture of Gary Bettman without recalling the going-away present one NBA general manager sent the soon-to-be-named NHL commissioner. That was in 1993, when Bettman left his post as general counsel and trusted lieutenant to NBA boss David Stern to try running a league of his own.
This would have been such an obvious decision in February.
