Buck Harvey: Stern rules, and Spurs can't protest
San Antonio Express-News
There are no assurances David Stern won't wake up today and rethink everything.
He might bring back Joey Crawford, if just for tonight.
But right now he's sticking with what he's done for a few decades. Over the years he could have fudged to make even more dollars and fans, and he hasn't.
And the symbol of how much his rules and principles mean to him?
The Spurs.
Stern has allowed them to succeed when it might have been better for business not to.
If he were an Aggie or a Longhorn named Bubba Stern, then everyone would understand. But he's a New Yorker who likely feels out of place as soon as he steps into the San Antonio airport.
Everyone would understand, too, if the Spurs were in a top-five market and were driving Stern's TV ratings. But the Spurs are closer to being the dynasty of his nightmares.
He even joked about that a few years ago. Then, asked about what his preferred playoff match was, he said Lakers vs. Lakers.
It's obvious the NBA maximizes profits when its biggest markets do well, which is why some wonder if Stern had anything to do with the Patrick Ewing lottery of 1985. The Folded Envelope Theory came up again just this month on a Web site, because Stern clearly wanted Ewing in New York, right?
This doesn't explain what happened just two years later. Then another Ewing-like figure was available, and Stern let him go to a failing franchise in South Texas.
The franchise that drafted second that year and just missed David Robinson: the Phoenix Suns.
Ten years later Stern had the same chance to fix a lottery. He could have renewed his traditional franchise, the Celtics, who actually had the best odds. Rick Pitino knows what followed.
Just a year after that the NBA faced a labor showdown. Salaries were zooming, and Stern could have gone another way on that issue, too.
Baseball, after all, allows its richest teams to out-bid the poorer ones. If Stern really wanted Lakers vs. Lakers, why not lean toward that model?
A lockout followed, and the ensuing deal gave the Spurs equal footing and the chance to keep Tim Duncan. Stern might have rethought everything that same spring; the Spurs immediately won the next title.
The labor agreement made a lot of money for everyone, and it was the smarter way to run the league. Furthermore, fixing a couple of lotteries would have risked the entire business if the truth had ever come out.
Stern knows what Roger Goodell knows. Image means everything in sports.
Still, things could have been done in the name of entertainment, yet the league clearly hasn't compromised on these basic issues. No one, then, should have been surprised when the same pattern was applied this week.
Stern had room to wiggle in deciding whether to punish Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw. Stern could have opted for the "spirit" of the rules, and he could have judged that neither player strayed far enough from the bench to warrant a suspension.
Few would have quarreled with that, just as few would have wondered why the Celtics won a lottery they were favored to win. If anything, most would have applauded Stern for a making a fair-minded decision; nearly everyone would rather have seen this series play out with all involved.
Stern instead held firm, and his radio sparring with ESPN's Dan Patrick on Wednesday revealed that. Then Patrick said a mitigating factor had to be the basketball worth of Stoudemire and Diaw, and Stern admonished him.
"Right," Stern said sarcastically. "I see. So I should make my decisions based upon whether it's a marquee player. I'm going to write that down."
That's Stern, dismissing anything that isn't consistent. And just as he did with lotteries and labor agreements before, he went against what would have helped business in the short term.
Nothing better defines that than what his decision means. Now there's a better possibility of another Spurs vs. Pistons Finals — and that's a long way from Lakers vs. Lakers.
