Category: David Stern

An NBA insider from a middle class franchise (the Hawks) sounds off about NBA draft practices. The system is a mockery of fairness. He’s so sick of how the top pick in the draft is manipulated by the league to allocate the best players for a handful of privileged franchises. The year is 1963. “This… Continue reading David Stern part 10 : The roots of NBA draft manipulation

Why the salary cap matters then and now I finally got around to a detailed read of this fantastic book: The Cap, How Larry Fleisher and David Stern Built the Modern NBA by Joshua Mendelsohn. There are many interesting parts for our understanding of David Stern and his legacy. The author is a labor lawyer… Continue reading David Stern part 9: The Cap

Consider l’affaire Sonics: The 2008 “move” (theft) of the Supersonics franchise from the city of Seattle to Oklahoma City. (The basic story is covered in this wikipedia article as well as a recent deep dive in Luminary’s podcast Sonic Boom. I’m going to assume you’re roughly familiar with the outline: Starbucks billionaire CEO Howard Schultz… Continue reading David Stern part 8: The Sonics

Note: I’ve had this post in drafts for almost a year now. It’s not super interesting. But I feel it does close a loop regarding the DelCo stuff. So let’s push it out there and move on. In September 2022 Bill Simmons did a podcast segment with Sean Patrick Griffin where they expressed some frustration… Continue reading David Stern part 7: Donaghy and Battista

Defector has a fantastic article this week from writer Keith Paradise titled The Rise And Fall Of Starter, The Coolest Company On Earth. Starter, of course, was an early maker of licensed sports apparel. Those awesome “satin” warmup jackets were their most famous product. (If you don’t subscribe just pay the $10 to read this… Continue reading David Stern part 6: An extra large satin piece of the puzzle

They said the New York accent would never play nationally but they sure were wrong. The voice is a huge part of the allure. He’s New York City through and through, born in the city, school in the city, all that crap. Lots of stories about his dad and his dad’s business. The neighborhood! The… Continue reading David Stern part 5: portrait of a honcho

Somewhere at the intersection of Pac-12 sports and David Stern is this particular forgotten 2013 scandal: Ed Rush forced to resign after bounty comments. Ed Rush was the head of basketball officiating for the Pac-12. Before a game he told a group of officials that he was putting a bounty out to reward whomever would… Continue reading David Stern part 4: The DelCo files and the plane ticket scandal

One of the best things ever written about sports, business and fandom was this essay by Bill James in his 1987 Baseball Abstract. I’ve never seen it reprinted online and no doubt this is a fair use violation but I need to quote it in its entirety. If you have never read a Bill James… Continue reading David Stern part 3: basketball as a business