Sport: Basketball
Born: September 22, 1942
Died: January 1, 2020
Town: Teaneck, New Jersey
David Joel Stern was born September 22, 1942 in New York City and grew up in Teaneck, NJ. His father owned a Jewish deli in Manhattan and David grew up a fan of the Knicks when they made regular trips to the NBA Finals in the early 1950s. His favorite player was Carl Braun, a five-time All-Star. David was a good recreational basketball player but was not a member of varsity teams at Teaneck High or at Rutgers, where he went as an undergrad. Even so, he continued to play after graduating from Columbia Law School until he was felled by a knee injury.
David worked for the law firm that represented the NBA and was the lead attorney for the league in the so-called Oscar Robertson case, a lawsuit brought by the Players Union in 1970 to prevent a planned merger between the NBA and ABA. David’s work paved the way for a settlement that led to the eventual merger of the two leagues in 1976 and free agency for players. David went to work for the league after that and, in 1984, succeeded Larry O’Brien as NBA Commissioner.
David’s timing coincided with the arrival of Michael Jordan and other highly marketable players. He was instrumental in shifting the NBA’s focus from promoting teams to promoting the league’s superstars. David pushed the NBA into international markets and was an advocate of pros playing in the Olympics, which spawned the 1992 “Dream Team” in Barcelona. In the years that followed, he exerted his influence on the sport in a number of areas, from player dress codes to salary caps and revenue-sharing, to the creation of the WNBA.
In 2014, David stepped down after three decades of change and growth in the NBA, much of it credited—fairly or unfairly—to his leadership That same year, he was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. In December of 2019, David suffered a stroke and died a few weeks later. NBA players wore black bands on their uniforms in his memory for the remainder of the season.