The only reason that David Stern is still the NBA Commissioner is because David Stern has been the NBA Commissioner for a long time and people have come to expect that the NBA Commissioner will be David Stern. I’ve blogged about this for quite awhile, so I’m not merely piling on Stern in wake of a lockout, a less-than-appealing CBA and the Chris Paul trade snafu. Stern did an excellent job in building the league in the ’80s and ’90s, turning his best and most marketable players into brands, but he should have stepped down at around the time Michael Jordan retired. Over the last decade quite a few franchises have fallen into financial disarray, many teams elaborately paper attendance and record ratings occurred last year because players did the exact opposite of what commissioner and owners wanted, with stars like Lebron James opting to make free agency truly free and relocating to new teams despite facing financial penalties.

The biggest problem is that NBA owners are in the same state of mind that baseball owners were in the ’70s and ’80s, trying to control their assets (the players) rather than allowing a flow of talent around the league. The more freedom baseball players had, the more their salaries elevated, the more year-round interest there was in the sport and the richer everyone got. The new NBA collective bargaining agreement allows for more a little more player movement, but it still rewards stars who stay in the same market. It also limits free agent contracts to four years, which places cost control ahead of logic. Wealthy teams signing stars to onerous long-term deals can destabilize those big-market teams and along with some degree of revenue sharing give smaller-market teams competitive balance. As in the rest of the world, the free market needs regulation but it’s certainly better for competition to have fewer restrictions based on fear and paranoia. It’s amazing wealthy capitalists who own these teams don’t get this. Essentially, Stern and the owners are blocking the very things that could make the league healthier. It’s time for a new commissioner who understands these things.•

••••••••••

“Pistol” Pete Maravich and Bob McAdoo compete in HORSE, 1978: