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No one promoted the foul nigger beast more than this man did.
David Stern Made the NBA Larger Than Life, but Kept It Small Enough to Touch
The former commissioner, who died Wednesday, turned the NBA into a cultural and commercial behemoth.
https://www.theringer.com/nba/2020/1...legacy-showmanThe NBA draft lottery was introduced in 1985, early in the 30-year tenure of former commissioner David Stern, who died this week at the age of 77. Stern led the NBA through its period of greatest expansion, from 1984 to 2014, so it’s not surprising that much of the coverage in the aftermath of his death has focused on how big the league became on his watch. As my colleague Dan Devine wrote earlier this week, the NBA that Stern inherited in 1984 was still a second-class league; as recently as the early ’80s, CBS was still broadcasting the Finals on tape delay. Three decades later, the NBA that Stern left to his successor, Adam Silver, was a global megalith, one whose stars’ images were worth billions of dollars, one with more fans outside the United States than inside it, one whose every development was watched and tracked in real time—and sometimes slightly faster than that, depending on who you follow on Twitter. Without David Stern, Daryl Morey’s take on the Hong Kong protests would have been regional news at best; hugeness may have downsides, but at least these days everyone is paying attention.
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