Celtics Life · Jan 5, 2020
NBA Commissioner David Stern, born for the job
The “stork” could not possibly have picked a better time to arrive at the Stern residence in Manhattan with an aspiring attorney than the late Summer of 1942.
Young David’s early schooling would have coincided with the infancy of the Basketball Association of America.
The wrap-up of this under-grad studies and progression to Columbia Law School were occurring as Abe Saperstein was launching his short-lived American Basketball League.
He was a corporate lawyer working primarily for the NBA – a damn good one, t’would seem – when terminology like “merger” and “reserve clause” were more common in hoops parlance than “turnover” and “offensive rebound.”