Former NBA Commissioner David Stern suffered a brain hemorrhage on Thursday and had to undergo emergency surgery, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver shared, via Shams Charania of The Athletic.
Stern spent decades in the NBA, first as an outside counsel for the league, then as General Counsel in 1978, Executive Vice President in 1980, and finally as NBA Commissioner in 1984, when he took over for Larry O’Brien.
The NBA underwent a major shift during Stern’s tenure as commissioner, as he helped boost the popularity of the sport in significant ways. He spent nearly three decades as the commissioner of the NBA, was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2014, the FIBA Hall of Fame in 2016, and received the Olympic Order in 2012.