Dan Bickley

azcentral sports

Adam Silver deserves a round of applause. The NBA commissioner made sure his next champion will not carry an asterisk into eternity.

He also proved that David Stern owes Phoenix a huge apology.

Don’t hold your breath.

Silver’s office proved that the NBA can be pragmatic and reasonable, not punitive and tyrannical, when disciplining wayward players during the postseason. Silver’s office could have easily suspended Golden State’s Draymond Green for kicking an Oklahoma City player in a very private area during Game 3 of the Western Conference finals. People have been arrested for less.

He refused because he didn’t want the outcome of a pivotal Game 4 tainted by the absence of a star player, thus putting the commissioner and his rules above the good of the sport.

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Basketball fans invest time, money and emotional support into their favorite teams. They are the lifeblood of the sport. Their commitment spans months and months of fandom. You can’t squash their hopes and dreams unless it’s your last recourse, unless a commissioner has no place else to turn. The letter of the law is never worth that kind of animosity.

That thought never occurred to Stern.

Chances are, Silver put down the hammer because he, too, likely bristled when his mentor suspended the Suns’ Amar’e Stoudemire and Boris Diaw on a technicality, before a crucial Game 5 against San Antonio in the 2007 Western Conference semifinals. For leaving the bench during an on-court skirmish. For stepping over his line in the sand.

As we all know, Stern effective punished the victim in that tragic episode. He tilted the series irreparably. His gavel struck so hard that it dropped Phoenix to its knees, knocking out the Suns and their best chance to win a NBA championship in the 21st century.

Stern changed the course of history in the Valley and in the NBA. He was so callous to our condition that he became agitated with our “palaver,” a high-dollar word full of condescension, aimed to describe prolonged and unnecessary conversation. That ruling still ranks among the most painful episodes in Arizona sports history.

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And guess what? His protégé just proved him wrong, even if Silver’s ruling woke up dormant demons, hitting the Valley like salt in old wounds.

That’s not to say the moderate, player-friendly Silver has done a better overall job. His NBA is approaching something of a breaking point. Unprepared and undeveloped college players are still making the game shrivel. Parity is a myth, and this past season, the league was full of disappointing, underachieving, petulant teams.

Former Suns star Charles Barkley has hammered the league for years on this issue, and will not relent.

“People think us old guys (are hating) when we talk about it,” Barkley said. “It has nothing to do with the Warriors’ greatness, LeBron’s greatness. But I’ve never seen the NBA as bad as it is, and I’ve been saying it the last three or four years. We’ve got too many young players coming out of college that don’t know how to play. It’s frustrating for me because I want to see competitive basketball.

“We took a survey with our crew … How many actual NBA teams would you buy season tickets for? Four in the West and Cleveland, obviously, in the East. That’s not good for our league.”

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Barkley said this summer will be something of “do-or-die” moment for the NBA, with some marquee players crashing the free-agent market.

Some think James might leave the Cavaliers, but only if he delivers a championship and fulfills his promise to the city of Cleveland. Be warned, Suns fans. The Lakers are reportedly on his list. Kevin Durant, Dwyane Wade, DeMar DeRozan and Dwight Howard are also considered headliners in a very deep class. And here’s the danger:

If these players continue the trend of grouping together with friends in desirable locations, clustering in the same city, it will further drain the competitive drama in the league.

“As much as I love LeBron James, that thing he did a few years ago where all these guys want to get together and be a super team, I hate it for the NBA,” Barkley said. “I want all our teams to be competitive. I don’t want to have 4-5 teams that can actually win a championship, and the rest of them are bad.

“That was the only negative about the thing LeBron did. He got all the stars together. He talked about, 'I want all the stars to go play together.' Why would you do that? Don’t you want to compete against other stars?”

Barkley knows what he’s talking about, as his lucrative job requires him to watch a lot of bad basketball teams. And in the very near future, Silver better find a way to restore the middle class, increase the overall maturity of the product and stop this unseemly trend of NBA players kicking their legs out at defending players.

But for now, the commissioner should take a bow. Oklahoma City can win a championship with asterisks and yeah-buts, while the Warriors have no excuses. And Stern really should apologize for all the needless pain he caused in these parts.

Don’t wait to exhale.

Reach Bickley at dan.bickley@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8253. Follow him at twitter.com/danbickley. Listen to “Bickley and Marotta,” weekdays from 12-2 p.m. on Arizona Sports 98.7 FM.