NBA’s Stern Talks of World Title Event

Part of Commissioner David Stern’s plan “to make basketball the No. 1 sport in the world by the year 2000” is to have the NBA’s 1992-93 champion participate in a world club championship before the 1993-94 season. But the rest of the world may not be a pushover.

Stern spoke in Barcelona, where an Italian club came within a few seconds of handing the NBA its first loss in international competition Thursday night. The New York Knicks needed overtime and 34 points from Patrick Ewing to defeat Italian champion Scavolini Pesaro, 119-115, in the McDonald’s Open.

“If we had lost the game . . . it would have been one of our team’s and the NBA’s most embarrassing moments,” Knick Coach Stu Jackson said.

Although Stern and Boris Stankovic, head of FIBA, the ruling body of international basketball, did not describe the future event as a true world championship, the NBA title-holder would compete among as many as 16 of the world’s top national teams.