Stern is a Joke
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by Ibearg
David Stern, once arguably the most powerful commissioner in sports, has become an absolute joke. Nearly everything he has done in the past few years has been poorly handled. From the dress code, to the new ball, to the Spurs-Suns suspensions last years they were all poorly handled. Now I'm not sure his decisions in any of these cases was completely wrong, a dress code isn't an awful idea, neither is a new ball and a rule is a rule. However, getting buy in from the players would have smoothed the process in the first two and simply understanding why people would argue the Suns players shouldn't have been suspended would have made it seem more reasonable that he did it anyway.
All that being said his decision to not punish Isiah Thomas and the Knicks is an absolute joke. Image if this was Stephon Marbury who had been sued for sexual harassment not the coach. If he had gone through this process and settled only after an embarrassing trial which he lost, is there any doubt Marbury would face a fine or suspension? What message does that send about sexual harassment in general?
You could argue he didn't punish them because they agreed to settle the thing. I'd buy that if they'd settled it before the trial, but they didn't. They took it this far and Stern urged them to settle now, which was clearly in their best interest anyway, so that's no excuse for not being punished. You could also ague the 11.5 million dollars was enough of a punishment, but again a player who might go to jail still gets penalized games and pay.
Stern needed to take action, and his not taking any is a sad addition to his quickly tarnishing legacy.
