Tim Duncan Paid Brent Barry $100 To Kiss David Stern In 2005

I can’t qualify this as breaking news, but it’s definitely funny.

This interesting tale courtesy of Pro Basketball Talk has former NBA player Brent Barry speaking to Buzzfeed about all things basketball when he got in-depth about a story from the 2005-06 NBA opening night, when he was about to receive  his championship ring from Commissioner Stern.

As I basked in that satisfaction I stood next to Tim Duncan. I said something like “Well that was fun last year, we should try to do this again!” He giggled his goofy giggle. And then I asked him how much he would give me if I kissed David Stern upon getting my ring.
He offered a sum, I considered it and waited for my name to be called. As I approached the Commish I felt like I couldn’t let my captain down. So after a quick ‘Congratulations Brent’ from David I hugged him and planted one right on his cheek. To this day, I swear he and grandma have the same skin.
As I moved slowly from the spotlight as it found the next player, I casually glanced over to Tim and, wiping my tongue with my finger tips as if something flakey remained from my time with Mr. Stern, I mouthed the words: “You owe me a hundred bucks!”

Will David Stern go down as the Greatest Sports Commissioner of All Time?

With David Stern’s some-what surprising, yet unsurprising news that he plans to retire February 1st of 2014 thoughts as to his overall legacy have been pondered. Stern has been NBA’s commander and chief since 1984, in NBA years 26 years is a very long, long time one in which the game has evolved drastically. Stern has been with Basketball through the Magic Johnson years, the Michael Jordan years, the Shaq and Kobe era and today during the age of Lebron. The day-night difference that Stern has seen and helped usher in for the sport has me fixed to believe that Stern will go down at the greatest sports commissioner of all-time.

He’s been called many names, most of which aren’t nice–’slave master’ ‘greedy Jew’ ‘money hungry’ the list of verbal assaults on Stern goes on. And let’s make no bones about it, Stern has been a controversial figure throughout his tenure, but it’s because of his keen ability to view Basketball in 3 dimensional terms and not relegate its impact to just entertainment, that speaks volumes as to why he was so successful. Stern can leave the NBA laughing all the way to the bank, and then some. It’s time we take a journey back in time to an NBA that was very different from the one of today, a pre-David Stern NBA…let’s go.

From 1975 to 1979 CBS was entered into a deal with the NBA valued at $91 million, during that time the NBA finals were ran on tape delay during the afternoons. The late 1970?s and early 1980?s featured an NBA struggling to get even decent ratings, as the league set the ‘gold’ standard in failure and proved to be a sinking ship. Even golf was beating the NBA Finals in ratings, and through the fledgling years up to Stern’s grip on the League the NBA was considered a joke, with no value and nothing that set it apart to deviate one’s attention from the powerhouse that is the NFL and MLB.