Thursday, September 10

Stern Paycut?

Left unsaid in the angry rhetoric about David Stern's forced paycut for NBA referees (he wants them to cut salaries by 10%, they're willing to take about 5 or 7%), is this question:

What sort of paycut is David Stern willing to take?

According to what you read on the internet (I know, I know), Stern pulls down an annual salary of approximately $10 million. After spending some time researching the issue, I could not find any information as to whether Stern has opted to take the same paycut he is forcing the officials to take.

Now, that's not to say that he hasn't - absence of proof is not lack of proof, after all. One of our astute readers may be able to point me in the direction of an article which shows that the commissioner has, indeed, taken a pay cut this year.

But, if he hasn't, how hypocritical is that? On the one hand, he's sacrificing his officials upon the altar of the economic recession, yet he seems to not feel the need to do that for himself.

I hope I'm wrong, and that Stern is doing the honorable thing. But, somehow, knowing his character, I doubt it.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

"I hope I'm wrong, and that Stern is doing the honorable thing. But, somehow, knowing his character, I doubt it".
*************************************

Do you personally know Stern? Do you live with him? Do you work with him? If not, then how could you know his character? I didn't like how the Sonics and their fans were treated and I absolutely think Seattle deserves to have another NBA team but, honestly, what would've you done if you were in charge of the NBA and Seattle officials (mayor, governor, senators etc.) kept showing you that they couldn't care a less about having the NBA there? I think you would've been pissed off as well. So, you should show your anger to those idiots who lead Seattle and the state of Washington. Or Howard Schults.

So, you can't really know his character. For instance, some people claim he's a great person (see SI.com's Jack McCallum who traveled all over the world with Stern), others like you don't like Stern's character. So, the truth is that we can't really say "Knowing his character" because we don't live/work with him. You know what I mean?

Anonymous said...

Schultz*

Anonymous said...

Wow, what a pissed off guy you seem. Honestly, all he had to do was replace "his" to "the human" and he's basically right so I don't see why you're getting all self righteous here.

ryan said...

So we're withholding comment on all persons we have yet to meet personally now? By that logic, Hitler is out of bounds, I suppose. I'm sure Goebbels could wax poetic about how wonderful Adolf was, and he "traveled all over the world with him" as you so eloquently put it.

Seriously, guy, it doesn't take a face-to-face with David Stern to see that he can act like a rat bastard at times.

JAS said...

“Do you personally know Stern? Do you live with him? Do you work with him? If not, then how could you know his character? I didn't like how the Sonics and their fans were treated and I absolutely think Seattle deserves to have another NBA team but, honestly, what would've you done if you were in charge of the NBA and Seattle officials (mayor, governor, senators etc.) kept showing you that they couldn't care a less about having the NBA there? I think you would've been pissed off as well. So, you should show your anger to those idiots who lead Seattle and the state of Washington. Or Howard Schults.”

Shall we assume then that you know personally all the “idiots who lead Seattle and the state of Washington”? After all, apparently you can’t judge people you don’t live or work with, right?
Or could it be that you’re just an OKC fan still in teacher’s-pet mode?
I actually think Stern has been a great commissioner overall, and I don’t really care how much money he makes, but I also think he deserves much more blame than he has generally received for what happened in Seattle (see Exhibit A here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qV4QLK0HnOc). Of course that doesn’t absolve Schultz, Nickels, Chopp, Gregoire, Bennett, et al.

nuss said...

"What would've you done if you were in charge of the NBA and Seattle officials (mayor, governor, senators etc.) kept showing you that they couldn't care a less about having the NBA there?"

Since you were kind enough to ask (and setting aside the half-dozen grammatical errors in your question), I would have:

1. Given the city the benefit of the doubt in its skepticism in dealing with Bennett and Schultz, inasmuch as the city had given the team everything it had asked for less than a decade previous.

2. Worked at a compromise between ownership and the city, rather than forcing the city to either capitulate or lose its team.

3. Acted as if the relationship built up over 40 years meant as much to the NBA as the relationship between Stern and Bennett.

But that's just me, and since I don't know David Stern as well as you do, I probably don't really know what I'm talking about.

JAS said...

Here’s a quote from referee spokesman Lamell McMorris about Stern, by the way:

“The problem is, David Stern does not negotiate. He tells you what's going to happen and then when you don't do it, and do something differently, he whines and acts like a child … That's not how you negotiate. Not with adults.”

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/basketball/nba/09/10/referees.lockout.ap/index.html

So, that’s from someone who presumably has dealt personally with Stern. Of course others who know the Commish might disagree, but the fact that someone like McMorris might say such a thing makes Nuss’s assertion seem a little less outlandish, doesn’t it?

JAS said...

Whoops, sorry, the URL didn’t fit:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2009/basketball/nba/09/10/referees.
lockout.ap/index.html

I do find it a little odd that Stern spends every postseason defending the NBA’s ever-vilified officiating corps before the media yet apparently treats them with such disdain in private.

Anonymous said...

You had to know that Hitler reference was coming, didn't you?

I can't begin to know Stern's character, but judging him based on his actions, he certainly seems to list his priorities in life as:

1. David Stern
2. NBA owners
3. NBA advertisers
4. everyone else

Which is, of course, his job. I think the problem with Stern is the amount of BS he dispenses and how he tries to be a nice guy all the time, while simultaneously knifing people (or cities) in the back.

Unknown said...

Wouldn't Stern taking a 7% pay-cut represent the difference between the referees demands and his?

nuss said...

Precisely, Jarends, precisely. I wanted to go into that in the bit I wrote, but I was afraid of going off on too much of a tangent about it might come back to bite me in the rear if, in fact, he has actually undertaken a pay cut.

If he has cut his salary, it has to be the only time in his life David Stern has done the right thing without calling a press conference to announce it.

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