The germ of the NBA was born because in the forties a group of businessmen needed to fill the nights that are free in their ice hockey pavilions. They had skating shows, rodeos, circuses, and college basketball, and it occurred to a journalist that it would be good to create a professional basketball league in which people could follow the players who finished college. In short, the NBA was born as filler . If today is a global phenomenon it is thanks to Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Michael Jordan or LeBron James , yes. But also the man who did the most to take them to every corner, David Stern . Today that man has died at the age of 77, victim of a stroke suffered a couple of weeks ago.

When David Stern arrived in the NBA in the seventies, the league struggled to survive . The infamous punch of Kermit Washington had just happened to Rudy Tomjanovich, one of the most tragic episodes in its history. The drug problems that would ravage the league in the eighties were already flourishing ... To be clear, it seemed that the NBA was 'too black ' to have wide acceptance among the American public. And the idea would last, by the way, because it was the reason for the famous 'dress code' that it would impose in 2005. But for that, there is a long way to go.

David J. Stern began collaborating with the NBA in the mid-sixties as a lawyer for the prestigious firm Proskauer Rose. He participated in the legal battle against the legendary Connie Hawkins - "Julius Erving before Julius Erving, Elgin Baylor before Elgin Baylor, Michael Jordan before Michael Jordan," Larry Brown would say about him - for a scandal of college basketball lovers in the that he had not participated (what would become of a great figure without shadows) or in the merger with the ABA in 1976. In 1980 the then Commissioner Larry O'Brien , who now names the champion trophy, named him his right hand. In 1984, he was succeeded on the throne.

The great expansion of the NBA

Only a few days before the NBA had resurrected the Mates Contest at the Denver All-Star, the same place that saw him born eight years earlier under the auspices of ABA. It had been Stern's idea, the first step in his aspiration to transform the star game into a weekend showcase. A great television product. Somehow, a small-scale rehearsal of the plans he had for the league: take it to every corner. First, from the country; later, of the planet.

The best measure of the weight of the NBA in the early eighties is that the Finals were still issued in deferred . That the league struggled to survive was not so crazy. Stern was fortunate to coincide with Magic and Bird (which also put the old rivalry between Lakers and Celtics in orbit), and that a few months after coming to power, Jordan would fall into Jordan's arms. But to express these immense possibilities, someone with his vision was needed.

Being still vice president, Stern had helped create NBA Entertainment , a production company to record and manage all the matches in the league. And the same year he assumed command, he signed a first agreement with cable television. It was all part of the same purpose: to build an imaginary and take it to as many homes as possible.

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