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Really good article.
Woj owning everybody this season
By Adrian Wojnarowski, Yahoo! Sports Mar 15, 7:23 pm EDT
The commissioner’s office will never escape this truth: In so many ways, Donald Sterling has carried out the NBA ownership vision of David Stern.
Bully and mistreat your employees.
Treat the front office and coaches like necessary evils with bare minimum salaries and staffing.
NBA commissioner David Stern recently chastised Magic coach Stan Van Gundy.
(Getty Images)
Turn a profit in a sparkling new arena.
Stern has long preached that coaches are too expensive, scouts too plentiful and perhaps no one has heeded the commissioner’s words like the Los Angeles Clippers’ owner. He has a history of hiring them cheap, and refusing to honor contracts. The NBA has a history of letting it go without protests.
Yes, Stern’s silence and inaction on Sterling’s de able behavior has to be considered as some level of approval. Now, Kim Hughes tells the story to the Racine (Wis.) Journal-Times about how Sterling didn’t pay for his prostate cancer surgery as a Clippers assistant coach several years ago. Clippers players contributed much of the $70,000 needed to take care of the costs that weren’t covered by Hughes’ medical insurance.
And once Sterling fires those coaches and scouts, he often stops paying the balance of their contracts. He dares them to sue. Some can, and do. Some can’t afford the legal fight and end up settling for pennies on the dollar.
This happened with scouts Scott Wissel and Jerry Holloway a year ago. They made less than six figures a year, and the Clippers simply stopped paying them. Essentially, Sterling was telling them, “The season’s over, and so what if your deal runs October to October. It’s April, get lost and we aren’t paying you.”
Eventually, Holloway won a settlement, and Wissel had to fight more than a year to get part of his money. Where was the league office? Where was Stern’s indignity?
This has been going on for years, and the commissioner’s office has allowed it. Often the only injustices in the NBA are injustices directed at Stern. He saves his moral indignity for those daring to challenge him, like Orlando Magic coach Stan Van Gundy late last week. For Stern, here was a crusade worthy of his ire.
Van Gundy tried to make sense of 593 foul calls without so much as a flagrant foul on Dwight Howard(notes). And after speaking the truest words of the season – saying that Stern doesn’t allow dissenting opinions in the NBA, that free speech is a scarce commodity on league issues – the commissioner reacted in a most predictable, childish way on state-run NBA radio. After refusing to confront Van Gundy directly and promising to take the matter to Magic ownership, Stern sounded like a power-drunk small-town mayor saying “… We won’t be hearing from him for the rest of the season.”
Off to Stern’s Siberia. Stern wouldn’t stop there, because he gets such a charge out of humiliating those under him. Taunted Stern, “I see somebody whose team isn’t performing, whose star player was suspended, who seems to be fraying.”
No commissioner has ever been so emboldened to speak this way. Yet now, so much of Stern’s staying power is built on a far more flimsy baseline. Respect has eroded for him, replaced with fear and loathing.
“It’s a divisionary tactic to take away from the 593 fouls without a flagrant,” one long-time league executive said of Stern’s rant on Van Gundy. “The question is: Do you have to be mean and a bully to be a commissioner? As he’s gotten older, he has become more mean-spirited, and it shows in how he deals with his own staff, coaches and with the new-age owners.”
When Stern goes to Orlando’s ownership group, he knows it’ll soon be wondering how much of an impact Van Gundy’s mouth will have on Howard and the Magic in the playoffs. Teams tremble over retribution from Stern and fear it in the form of officiating.
Big and small markets. Winning and losing franchises. Great and lousy general managers and coaches. Old and new owners. They all agree: Don’t push Stern too hard because there will be a price to pay. Better off bowing, kissing the ring and shuffling past him.
Anything goes in Stern’s NBA, except challenging the emperor. The league office never cares about criticism about most of its biggest stars, owners and coaches. In some cases, it’ll openly encourage it. Want to invite a call to your boss? That’s easy. Pull back the curtain on the commissioner.
Several Clippers paid the bill for cancer surgery on an assistant coach, but the NBA cares. Sure it does – about Stern’s power, about his ego. The NBA has taken over USA Basketball and the Naismith Hall of Fame. It’s creating an infrastructure to control and make money off amateur and summer basketball through iHoops. The NBA has mobilized resources and staff to indoctrinate basketball cultures in the Far East, Europe and beyond.
But for all the new worlds that Stern tries to conquer, he’s losing touch, losing hold, on the old-world NBA. Few believe in the purity of his office, nor its intentions.
Stan Van Gundy will be made to regret his words far more than Donald Sterling will ever his deeds. That’s the cold-blooded truth of a cold-blooded code.
That’s David Stern’s NBA.
Really good article.
Woj always delivers
I have heard that Stern hates Pop because he doesn't play by the rules. I like that you see so many of people who were under Pop and Brown's wings spreading out through the NBA cities, especially the smaller markets. Hopefully this will lead to change for the better of the game.
there's not many people i'd wish ill on, but i can't say i wouldn't be happy if stern had a heart attack, keeled over and ing died.
Stern and Sterling. What do those two have in common? HMMMMMM... There must be something I just can't quite put my finger on it.
Stern's an ass. I hate that guy.
Stern's ego has no bounds. It's quite comical watching all the minions hovering around him as if he's some god. At many of the all star festivites you could see this little swarm of bodies hovering around the queen bee and catering to his every move as they jumped from activity to activity. I was surprised not to see some nubile young maidens tossing rose petals at his feet.
With that said, It's hard to argue against the success and expansion of the NBA empile under his reign.
To be fair Van Gundy is the most hated coach by players. He's pretty much an annoying bag. http://blogs.orlandosentinel.com/spo...ayers-say.html
dude couldn't even make it on a pickup game at recess in 3rd grade, so how exactly is this dude experienced enough to run the nba? oh, i forgot, he's jewish and has a knack for business.
besides the stern, i also have a problem with the refs they hire. hire dudes who have played the game before, not necessarily ex-nba stars but people who aren't 5'2" and 50+ yrs old.
there needs to be some new blood in the nba offices and on the court reffing.
Good point
Haywood Workman is not bad at all
no it hasn't, i've read this forum time from time during my "hiatus" and nothing has changed.
the trolls are still trying to call each other out
the trolls are still a bunch of pathetic s who spend a ton of time on ST trying to act cool
the trolls are still trolling
so what exactly has changed around here? there's no bar, and there's no where to raise it either. kill yourself!
for those here who blindly think that the NBA doesn't rig officiating...THIS is very interesting to see that SOMEONE has mentioned this;
When Stern goes to Orlando’s ownership group, he knows it’ll soon be wondering how much of an impact Van Gundy’s mouth will have on Howard and the Magic in the playoffs. Teams tremble over retribution from Stern and fear it in the form of officiating.
Big and small markets. Winning and losing franchises. Great and lousy general managers and coaches. Old and new owners. They all agree: Don’t push Stern too hard because there will be a price to pay. Better off bowing, kissing the ring and shuffling past him.
Anything goes in Stern’s NBA, except challenging the emperor. The league office never cares about criticism about most of its biggest stars, owners and coaches. In some cases, it’ll openly encourage it. Want to invite a call to your boss? That’s easy. Pull back the curtain on the commissioner.
Let's see how far the Magic go this post-season...
Why wouldn't anyone try to change this?
If this season ends and the lockout becomes a reality--I would sure love to see the players grow some balls and take their talents and form a new league...
the NBA and Stern.
I agree man, check out this quote from Tim Donaghy about the NBA being rigged!
DiK, checking this site from the sidelines these past weeks has given me a greater appreciation for ST.
this site has been infiltrated by dip- s like you who have no where to go and who feel as if signing up and trolling the out of a forum like ST is necessary to make you feel important. it's quite humorous.
if that isn't funny, well, i get a kick out of the fact that a loser ass suns fan who loves to swallow melo's & amare's daily also thinks he's some sort of internet sensation. the truth is, you've lost your way man and found out that not only is your team never going to win but they also don't have a forum like ST you can hang out at, nor do they have a great fan base like that of the SPURS which you can be part of. you come here to validate yourself, instead you set yourself up for failure.
lol DoK banned
lol crying to kori to get unbanned because you're hardcore & everyone hardcore peeps don't cry
lol hiding behind multiple handles
lol suns fans
lol melo guzzler
lol amare guzzler
lol in' accountant who won't find a job in this economy and will most likely go back to school on mommy and daddy's dime and brag about it here on ST in the coming yrs while trolling into his 30's
I have a job. I'm starting next week. Try again
Stern has his flaws, but his potential replacement wouldn't be any better..fans are always going to complain about rigged NBA, myself included..
Woj is the most overrated writer in sports..he gets cheap publicity and hits by going after easy targets..
an internship isn't a job... it's volunteering.I have a job. I'm starting next week. Try again
besides that, i don't care if you ever get a job or have the best job in the world, it makes no difference to me. simply, you're a .
$12.00 an hour (nothing good, but probably not much less than you made as a secretary) is volunteering? Try again
I said job (or paid internship), not unpaid internship.
tattooing, doing design work, and going to school... it's great.
btw, i've never fetched coffee in my life. then again you're dumbass is going to assume whatever you think a "secretary" does, i was more of an office clerk tbh but i'm not ashamed of that le "secretary" cause it paid the bills. this isn't the 1950's fool.
God, why are you being so mean to Reinhard? He's a cool guy.
good for you, i hope you strive for more in the future but the field you're in is a tough field indeed and very saturated. good luck!$12.00 an hour (nothing good, but probably not much less than you made as a secretary
I said job (or paid internship), not unpaid internship.
Welcome back, Perry!
Get a hair cut yet?
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