I promise I ain’t gonna turn this into a sports blog, but a word is due on the retirement of long-n-n-n-g-time NBA commissioner-don David Stern.

For those who loved-beyond-reason the free-wheeling, swashbuckling, funk-filled game professional basketball was when Stern arrived at his post in 1984, he’s the worst commissioner in the history of sports.

For those who prefer the grim, joyless techno-equation (efficiency + conformity = profitability) the entire sport–not just the men’s pro version–became on his watch, he’s the “greatest commissioner in the history of sports!”

Since I put one of those judgments in quotations, you can guess which narrative those assigned to the Sports’ Journalist component of the Dead Brain Cell Count Brigade long since learned not to challenge.

I mean, I still watch the NBA when I can. I haven’t entirely given up on it. But for the game (by which I mean the product on the court) to rise from its current zombie-like state will probably take more than one man’s long overdue retirement.

And I’ll give Stern this much credit.

I’m absolutely certain he planned it that way.