Dan Patrick opens a deli with David Stern

UNCUT OUTTAKES: A condensed version of Dan Patrick's interview with NBA commissioner David Stern appears in the Nov. 11 edition of ESPN The Magazine

	NBA Commissioner David Stern says he cringes when he sees photo evidence of his "past dabblings with facial hair."

DP: As commissioner, what position do you play?
DS: I'm a point guard. I distribute to as many people as possible and let them win the game.
DP: Can you still play power forward?
DS: Sure. I'm not flashy like a shooting guard, but if you want me to be in Atlanta on Tuesday night and Bristol the next morning, I'll do it. I can't shoot but I can rebound.

DP: If you were working at Stern's Deli and naming sandwiches, what would the Shaq be?
DS: Triple-decker.
DP: Kobe?
DS: A hamburger. Because he got sick that time at McDonald's.
DP: Backdoor answer, nice. Jordan? He's got club written all over him.
DS: Really? No, Jordan is pastrami on rye. A classic.

DP: Do you call your NFL counterpart "Tags"?
DS: Just Paul.
DP: Who's the best athlete of all the commissioners?
DS: I'm going to tip my hat to Paul and his basketball prowess at Georgetown. Though I wouldn't give anything to him in the racket sports.
DP: What's that on the floor? Oh, a gauntlet! I'm saying interleague rivalry!

DP: What other sport would you like to run?
DS: This is it. I think some people with power fool themselves into thinking that they can do anything. Not me. I know what I'm good at.
DP: What memorabilia do you have?
DS: I collect nothing. I savor the moment. My almost 19 years have been spectacular -- I couldn't begin to replicate the experience with objects.

DP: Do you like Ernie Johnson's mustache?
DS: No. I wouldn't have gone that way. Although given some of my past dabblings with facial hair, I should recuse myself from this conversation.
DP: When you see photo retrospectives of yourself, do you cringe?
DS: Regularly.

DP: As a fan and as a commissioner, what did you think of the Terrell Owens Sharpie incident?
DS: I don't know what his intent was. Was he trying to show up somebody? ... I think he was showing off, but maybe he didn't mean to insult the guy.
DP: Let's say he was showing off and there was some intent. As a commissioner, would you step in and do anything about that?
DS: Yes. I'd tell him he shouldn't do it again, just like the NFL did.
DP: No fine and no suspension?
DS: I like to try to give the players the benefit of the doubt the first time, as long as it isn't a blatant situation.

DP: We could talk about our commercial if you want to.
DS: Later.
DP: OK. Sometimes, do you have to be brought up to speed on what's hip vs. what's allowable as far as what younger players do?
DS: I'll tell you what my wife says: It's hopeless.
DP: You're never going to be hip?
DS: I'm beyond hip -- she says I should just be quiet.
DP: But when you see Chris Webber do the slash sign, you know that's crossing the line.
DS: Yes, that's right. Everybody watches our players and that's really not a good thing to do and not a good example to set. That's why the Sharpie -- that's sort of a new one. There are certain things that are just slight extensions or variations of what went on before and shouldn't be either encouraged or condoned.

DP: You are quoted as saying that you would pay college athletes or give them a stipend. ... Do you think that would deter any of them from leaving early?
DS: No, I don't really think so ... I'm not an expert here or an authority. I have a reaction as a fan, which is from what I understand -- and my understanding may not be complete -- that players on scholarship sometimes get in trouble if they need to go home and someone gives them a ticket to go home.
DP: Yes.
DS: The notion of the athlete who can't afford it, or a family that can't afford it, with his nose pressed up against the window watching other people do normal activities -- like visiting family -- that, to me, is not really a good thing. And I think a stipend would eliminate situations like that. I'm not talking about professional payments, but something where a scholarship means enough so that the student-athlete can join the mainstream of the college community.

DP: Did you have mixed emotions with what happened at the World Championship games?
DS: Yes. As an American, I would like to see our players, (a) very much want to represent their country, and (b) have adequate time and training and the like to make sure that they can do it well. Perhaps we didn't do such a good job in both articulating how important it is and making sure that the task was well-defined. As the NBA commissioner, some of our NBA players and prospects beat other NBA players and prospects, and it just demonstrates that the pool of talent on a global basis -- literally from all over the world -- is expanding dramatically. So when a player says he's an NBA player and he's the best in the world, we mean the best in the world. ... I've had a number of [American NBA] players say to me privately, well, count me in -- because until you saw it on TV, you didn't quite understand that, to the rest of the world, the World Championship is sort of the equivalent of the World Cup of soccer. I mean, the demonstration in Yugoslavia when they won the championship...
DP: What did they have, 100,000 fans?
DS: Right. And actually our fans began to get a sense of what it is to watch a basketball game in Europe with the painted faces and the flags and the continual chants. It's really quite a bit of fun, and now we have a frame of reference of what the World Championship is. I think we always had it for the Olympics. And so I think that by Athens you'll see a lot of players answering the call. You'll see a longer training schedule. Utilization of international officials during exhibition games and maybe even more exhibition games against foreign teams.

DP: Give me the time frame of when we could have an NBA franchise in Europe.
DS: That is going to depend upon two things. First, a building that can house a franchise. We don't really have one yet. There are plans that are five years away for NBA-style buildings in Berlin and London. Second, we need to know for sure that people will support the NBA. ... I'm not here to say that it's ready to play a 41-game schedule in a particular country at the kinds of prices and with the kind of interest that we depend upon here. I think it's possible, and I think in five or six years it might happen. But we need to work on those two areas.

	NBA commish David Stern isn't just another face in the crowd.

DP: Did you think the fine for Latrell Sprewell, the disciplinary action by the Knicks, was too harsh?
DS: I haven't consulted with my lawyers, and I don't remember what the exact provisions are, other than to suggest to you that if a player doesn't report in shape for his games, he can be suspended. And I think that that would result in possibly more of an economic impact on Latrell than the $250,000 fine.
DP: But that's not clear. Do the Knicks have to go to you and say we're going to tell him to stay away and we're going to fine him $250,000?
DS: No ... there's an arbitration procedure under the collective bargaining agreement. These things don't involve me. They involve discipline and review by an arbitrator and proceedings that keep our lawyers busy. But as I recall, you are required to present yourself in good physical condition, so reading it just as a fan and realizing all the other things involved in the soap opera of how it happened and why -- I thought that actually, given that his absence might be a long time, the fine may have been less than not paying him under his contract.
DP: It seems like the deception is what bothered the Knicks.
DS: Well, if you need surgery you certainly should tell your team so the surgery can be performed immediately.

DP: People want to know if you're mad at me because I made you wait in line for the bathroom in the ESPN commercial.
DS: Actually, I'm quite upset that they didn't run the version that I scripted, which had me moving in front of you. But I can take it.
DP: Yes, you did play the commissioner line on me -- you said, "I want you guys to film this. We'll never use it, but I want this for my archives that you're not going to tell me to wait in line."
DS: Right, so we have it safely ensconced in the NBA archives.
DP: Who is the basketball player on the skateboard? Because people asked, is that Grant Hill?
DS: It's an extra.
DP: It's not an NBA player?
DS: No.
DP: Oh, OK.
DS: How's that for a trivia answer?
DP: I've had questions about that, and I watched the commercial and I thought, well, he's a little heavy to be Grant Hill. Plus, if you're the Magic, you're not letting Grant Hill on a skateboard.
DS: No, that's correct.

DP: For many years the perception has been that the NBA promotes individuals over teams. Is it still individuals over teams? And was that a fair description of how the NBA was marketed?
DS: No, it wasn't. What happened was that when we had Larry and Magic and we had Michael and Doctor J, we didn't have to promote anything. In fact, the various talk shows, the Entertainment Tonights, everything was totally focused on us -- and the biggest promotion really was NBC, which in prime time would say, "Come see Larry Bird and the Boston Celtics." So they always told you who the team was together with the player, but there was not this fetish about promoting players as much as people say it was.

DP: Would you say the New Jersey Nets last season were equivalent to what we saw with the Anaheim Angels this baseball season?
DS: Yes. It was a complete turnaround and everything came together for them at exactly the right time.
DP: I don't know if the NBA has parity, because the Lakers have won three titles in a row. Does it concern you when you have a dynasty like this? Is it good for the league? Or, as commissioner, do you want to see different teams be able to win the title?
DS: I think the issue is the journey. If the Lakers can win it because they've had to go through a tough seven-game series with Sacramento, it doesn't matter that they've won it two or three times before.
DP: But you don't think that a city like Sacramento would get more out of winning a championship than the Lakers repeating?
DS: They might, but the question for us is whether we just had a good competition. The fact that one team manages to keep winning -- that's one reason you play the game, to see who's the best.
DP: What about this season?
DS: There are lots of interesting story lines that will make this season a lot of fun for everybody. Will Dikembe Mutombo and Rodney Rogers make the Nets better? Has Sacramento been able to improve? What will Grant Hill and Tracy McGrady do together in Orlando?

DP: Will we ever have another Michael Jordan? Not just on the court, but off the court as well.
DS: I don't think in our lifetime there's going to be quite the equal of Michael Jordan, because he came at a particular point in time when sports marketing was literally being defined as a new genre and television was stepping up along with cable. When Michael Jordan played his first game, I don't know how many television households had cable, but it was probably 40 million. Today we're at almost double that with cable and satellite. There's not just an ESPN, there's an ESPN2 and an ESPNNews and so many things grew with Michael. I think we'll see other great players who will make the fans of that day forget about Michael Jordan. I think we'll see great role models off the court. But nobody will be quite at that intersection where Michael Jordan landed.

DP: What memorabilia do you have?
DS: I have a photo with Larry and Magic when Magic retired, and a gold-medal photo with Magic and Michael.
DP: No jerseys?
DS: I have an assigned Dream Team T-shirt. But I'm not a collector. My collection is memories. I'm not a big believer in memorabilia because I think that if you start focusing on that, you don't enjoy the event as much as you could -- and I really love to savor the moment without thinking about someone's autograph or whatever. And the ones that I have are because somebody sent them to me. I collect nothing. I don't even think it's appropriate. I just want to enjoy the moment, because it's been a spectacular almost 19 years and I just can't even think about replicating it. I like to think about it sometimes, but having a piece of memorabilia doesn't do it for me.

DP: I've received e-mails from a lot of people who say the NBA is focusing too much on a hip-hop image. That you're appealing to a younger audience, whereas maybe before you didn't. Is the league too hip-hop?
DS: Could anybody watching you and me in our bathrobes [in ESPN's NBA commercial] accuse us of catering to a hip-hop generation?