As it was in the beginning, so it will be in the end, an NBA without David Stern, amen. It’s true. There is going to be an NBA without its commissioner of the last 30 years, who’s handing over his axe, er, stepping down in favor of Deputy Commissioner Adam Silver on Feb. 1. It just won’t seem like the NBA, though. Not that the league won’t continue on its merry way. The stars will still be stars. The league will continue to
Take flopping, please. Happily for the NBA, it’s going away, even if the league will pay a higher cost than it knows from crime-and-punishment headlines, stemming from David Stern’s decision to make it a crime, not a basketball play, punishable by huge fines. How hard would this have been: Tell the referees to make defenders be stationary for a count, not an instant. What’s the hard part? Tie goes to the offensive player, as it does to the runner in baseball. Unfortunately, nothing is easy