David Stern’s Boo Line Resurfaces: The Commissioner Who Turned Jeers Into a Standing Ovation
Every old coach knows the sound. You walk out for the coin toss on a Friday night in a rival town, and the home bleachers let you have it. Doesn’t mean a thing except you showed up. David Stern understood that better than anybody in a suit.
A clip making the rounds again this week shows the late NBA commissioner at the podium during the 2013 NBA Draft at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center, grinning into a wall of boos and telling the crowd: “We’ve had to explain to our international audience that the boo is an American sign of respect.”
It was Stern’s 30th and final draft as commissioner — he would retire on February 1, 2014, handing the league over to Adam Silver after three decades on the job. By that night in Brooklyn, the booing had become a ritual. Every time Stern stepped to the microphone, the draft-floor crowd unloaded, and every time, he soaked it in like a man who’d been reading defenses for thirty years and knew exactly what blitz was coming.
USA Today reported that Stern “relished the boos from the Barclays Center crowd,” encouraging fans to boo louder as the first round wore on. SB Nation noted that he “seemed to thrive on it.” Grantland’s Rembert Browne tracked the escalation pick by pick, writing that by the 20th selection the cheering had overtaken the jeers, and that at pick 21, Stern “unleashed a haymaker” — the international-audience line that drew laughs and, naturally, more boos.
The joke landed because it was true. Stern had spent his commissionership pushing the NBA into global markets — Europe, Asia, Africa — and the league’s international broadcast partners apparently needed a cultural glossary for the draft-night heckling. In plenty of countries, booing is an insult, full stop. In American arenas, it’s a love language with the volume turned up.
Stern died on January 1, 2020, at age 77. He ran the NBA from 1984 to 2014, steering the league through the Michael Jordan era, two lockouts, the dress code, and the expansion that turned a stateside league into a worldwide brand. The booing tradition outlived him — Adam Silver catches it every June too, though nobody has quite matched Stern’s knack for making the crowd feel like they were in on the bit.
There’s a certain kind of leader who can stand in front of people who are yelling at him and make them laugh. Stern had it. You can teach scheme. You can teach conditioning. That thing — you either bring it to the podium or you don’t. The film doesn’t lie.
Watch
Sources
- USA Today — David Stern embraces nearing retirement with wide grin
- Grantland — Among the Boobirds at David Stern’s Final NBA Draft
- SB Nation — Brooklyn boos David Stern with vigor in commissioner’s final NBA Draft
- For The Win (USA Today) — David Stern shows why he’s the best at getting booed
- Deadspin — A Supercut Of David Stern Getting Booed And Loving It
- Streamable — Resurfaced clip of Stern’s quote