David Stern, a Little Man Among Giants of NBA, Stands Tall

On a roll. That describes both the National Basketball Assn. and David Stern, who this weekend begins his second year as the league’s commissioner.

Attendance is up 7.5% from last season’s record pace; the league’s television picture is brighter; labor problems have been solved, and a majority of the teams are expected to make money this season.

Some problems remain. One team, the Clippers, switched cities this season and is facing a league-filed lawsuit because of the move, while a second, the Kings, wants to move from Kansas City to Sacramento. And, while the NBA’s anti-drug program generally seems to be working, veteran stars John Drew and John Lucas suddenly quit their teams this season after a relapse of cocaine abuse.

Yet Stern, 42, whose glasses, 5-foot-10 frame and slight paunch is in marked contrast to the giants he supervises, is unshakably upbeat about the NBA’s progress and future.

“The things we have worked on over the years are beginning to pay dividends,” said Stern, who joined the NBA as general counsel in 1978. “Those things that occupied our time a few years ago are being replaced by our ability to focus on more constructive things, like great players and games. This year, for the first time, we can sit back and appreciate how far we’ve come.”

To stress the point, Stern said that there were 100 more requests for media credentials for the Feb. 10 All-Star game in Indianapolis than for last year’s game.

“Cities once thought of the All-Star game as a burden,” Stern said. “Now it’s a major showcase for the league.”

Three years ago, then-Commissioner Larry O’Brien shook his head over a laundry list of NBA woes--labor strife, drug problems, tottering franchises and dwindling television ratings.

O’Brien said it sometimes was appropriate to glance across the street from the 15th-floor NBA offices to St. Patrick’s Cathedral and say a little prayer for the future of the league.

The spires of St. Pat’s still cast shadows on the league headquarters, but the outlook is decidedly more sunny.

Average attendance through the first 507 of 943 scheduled games this season was 10,873, up 7.5% from a year ago. Thirteen of the 23 teams showed attendance increases, compared with nine clubs averaging fewer fans. Portland, which sells out Memorial Coliseum for every home game, was unchanged.

More people are watching at home, too. Lured by rookies such as Michael Jordan of Chicago and Akeem Olajuwan of Houston, and established stars such as Julius Erving of Philadelphia, Larry Bird of Boston and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar of the Los Angeles Lakers, ratings for the NBA on CBS are up 4.8 percent from 1984.

A precedent-setting contract with the players’ union that avoided a strike on the eve of the 1983 playoffs now is in full effect, including testing for drug use. Those spot checks led to Lucas and Drew leaving their teams, but they also have been credited with helping several other stars, including Micheal Ray Richardson, stay away from the drugs that once threatened their careers.

Things already were turning around when Stern took over on Feb. 1, 1984.

“My first priority was to make work the programs already in place,” said Stern, who was O’Brien’s right-hand man in formulating those policies. “A year later that judgment has been borne out and we’re beginning to be on an upswing.”

As a partner in a law firm that represented the NBA, then as the league’s general counsel and executive vice president for business and legal affairs, Stern had a hand in nearly every important decision and policy concerning the league in the last 15 years. This included negotiation in 1976 of the Robertson Settlement that opened the way to free agency, the expansion of the league to include four American Basketball Associatin teams, the current salary cap aimed at financial stabilization and the agreement guaranteeing players 53 percent of gross revenues.

After all those major changes, Stern sees an outside threat, one he says is common to all sports, as the biggest problem facing the NBA.

“Sports now are in a muddled media situation,” Stern said. “College football and basketball are on two major networks, cable networks and syndication. Pro football is on year-round. It’s a very crowded, some would say oversaturated television market and a sports league has to know how to deal with that market if it’s going to continue to grow. That’s our biggest problem today.”

Under a policy of “less is more,” the NBA has reduced the number of games on national cable from 120 to 55 this season and prevented local cable systems from broadcasting games outside their regions.

“When you watch six college basketball games on a Saturday afternoon on cable and two network games, we’re afraid you might be less likely to watch an NBA game,” Stern said. “We can’t control how many games of another sport are available, but the way to deal with it is to promote your product and compete with the other sports.”

Stern believes the NBA can win that battle.

“We’re the only sport where our ratings are higher than last year and five years ago,” he said. “I don’t know if we can keep that pace up, but the sport that manages to retain its ratings in a situation where there undoubtedly will be attrition because of the proliferation of sports is going to do well.”

Stern is optimistic that when the current CBS deal expires, “the NBA will have a unique chance to improve our position with the networks,” in other words make considerably more than the current $23 million per year.

“At one point we were almost dropped by the network and now we’ve reestablished outselves as a product the networks want,” Stern said.

Another problem facing all pro sports leagues is the movement of teams from one city to another, what Stern called “a terrible situation.”

“If a team is doing well in a city, it is bad business for a league to encourage or allow it to move because it causes cynicism among the fans,” he said. “But courts have cast such doubts on the right of leagues to regulate moving that there’s a presumption that an owner has to be careful before voting against a move because he might get involved in litigation.”

After years of subpar crowds in San Diego, Donald T. Sterling moved his Clippers this season to Los Angeles, where the team’s attendance in the Sports Arena is up an average of 4,177 fans a game. The NBA said Sterling’s switch violated its rules and sued for $25 million to reverse it, while also amending its constitution to set out policies on franchise shifts.

That policy was followed, Stern said, when the Kansas City Kings informed the league office last month that they wanted to move to Sacramento for the 1985-86 season. He said he had “no qualms” with the Kings’ announcement and that a decision would be made within the 120 days allowed by the NBA charter. Kansas City’s average home attendance this season is down 884 fans a game, after two consecutive years of increases.

Despite an uneven distribution of teams in each conference, Stern said the league has no immediate plans to expand.

“Three years ago, six teams made money; two years ago, eight made money; and this year we believe a majority of 13 teams will make money,” Stern sai. “When all the teams get in a profitable situation, then we want to look into it. If that’s sooner than later, we can look into expansion sooner, but we’re not pushing it at all. We want to be a successful league first, and then a larger league second.”

But Stern downplays his own role in making the NBA successful, despite the almost-universal praise he’s heard in his first year.

“No fan has ever bought a ticket or watched a game on TV because of an owner, a general manager or a commissioner,” he said. “What is going to excite our fans are the great athletes and the breathtaking plays they make. It’s my job to help provide a stage for that.

“In the absence of crises, in which a commissioner is sued or is being sued, the commissioner should not be the focus. If fans are talking about Michael Jordan, the Twin Towers in Houston or the seventh game of the Championship Series, that’s what’s great for the game. If things go well, the commissioner will get credit for other people’s work.”