The Commish Does Harlem

NBA Commissioner David Stern knows how to schmooze. That's no pejorative either - the man's just super business saavy and people smart. I remember meeting him in Istanbul at a preseason game where, with that ever-present smirk, he created instant banter with jokes about how bad my Turkish was, though he knew none himself. And, man oh man, can he offer a warm hand to shake.

Stern goes at it again in the video below, this time at Mosaic Cuts Unisex barbershop in the heart of Harlem. Watch him deftly deal with all questions flung his way. Despite youtube comments, I don't think the questions were prepared - queries on the dress code, age limit and court brawls should be pretty commonplace to him by now.



One of the more interesting sidebars - and apropos to the article I wrote in the previous post - deals with the possibility of talented players leaving to Europe, never to return/or enter the NBA. Stern responds that 1) With more than $2 billion shunted to players' pockets last year, the NBA is too efficient a money-making machine to worry about about mass defections to Europe and 2) With the likes of superstar imports Yao, Nowitzki, Parker, Gasol etc., foreign leagues are worrying more about the NBA siphoning their talent than the other way around.

Fair points, Stern, that may hold up well enough in the short term. But two emergent forces may turn, or at least stem, the tide: 1) the accelerated growth of GDP and basketball interest in China, and to a lesser extent south Mediterranean nations, will generate higher salaries to lure NBA players for longer and 2) More mid-tier NBA players (like Josh Childress or Fred Jones) may begin steering their careers to the Olde World because they, unlike superstars or marginal players, can lock multi-year, multi-million contracts eclipsing anything they could make stateside.