Stern Knows Europe Isn’t a Threat to NBA

David Stern weighed in on Brandon Jennings’s overseas adventure in a Sunday New York Times article. You can decide whether his reaction was positive, dismissive, or both:↵↵⇥“I actually think it’s a pretty cool thing for a kid to do what he’s doing,” Stern said. “There’s a big world out there. If you want to play for Rome as opposed to Arizona, go ahead and do what you think is best. It’s a positive development for kids and for the N.B.A. scouts.”↵↵Stern doesn’t want his league flooded with untutored high school kids. And he likes the name recognition that comes with college stars. Hence, the strong alliance with Myles Brand, and the reasons to not want everyone to do what Jennings has. But he’s also fixated on the NBA’s international future. So if the likes of Brandon Jennings can go to Europe, get seasoned there, and come to the States with a huge, devoted fan base in Europe, that’s not worse than college. Just different.↵
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↵Above all, though, the Commish knows that not every player is Jennings. A disproportionate number of the teenage draftees were -- at the risk of stereotyping -- poor and not especially cosmopolitan. Stern can afford to be whimsical about Brandon Jennings because he knows, as he probably does with Josh Childress, that it’s just not for everyone. Difference is, the Jennings scenario still benefits the league long-term, while Childress is an outlying freak whose impact on the global game is more bittersweet.↵