Nowhere on earth is there anything more self-inflating, including life vests, Jerry Krause and three-bean salad, than NBA Commissioner David Stern.
This is a man who can puff himself up just by breathing. And not always in. The air Stern expends talking out should deplete him by the gallon, but the more he goes on, the puffier he gets.
Like Krause, like Jerry Reinsdorf, Stern happened to have been the clerk on watch during the Age of Jordan, clearly the golden era of basketball, a time receding before our eyes.
However the Bulls finish this final adventure, whether Jordan is back with the Bulls or somewhere else, even if, most improbably, all the pieces were reassembled, clearly all that this was and meant is ending.
The Bulls never will be the same again, nor will Jordan, nor will the world that has stared and shared.
Stern, the good clerk that he is, would insist it will go on in some different form, as it changed with Larry Bird and Magic Johnson, as it became what it has with Jordan, as what lies ahead with those who follow, the whole callow lot of them.
It is not just fitting that the Bulls and the Jazz are contemporary congregations in the Church of Michael, but it is ominous as well.
For after this is over, the world falls to–everyone is saying this–the Minnesota Tykes and the Los Angeles Punks.
Can’t wait.
As Jordan’s time recedes and Jordan’s voice dims, Stern is asked for his benediction.
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Ask Stern what time it is, he will give you a tour of Switzerland.
A simple question of Jordan’s significance to basketball required no more than a one-word response, one word less than Jordan’s famed fax “I’m back.”
(Will Jordan leave the same way? “I’m gone.”)
“Everything” should have been the reply to what Jordan has meant.
Instead, Stern offered–and I counted every syllable, including contractions–a 644-word response that was not only three times longer than the Gettysburg Address, but was full of pretentious clap and pompous trap.
However this turns out, Jordan may not play another basketball game in this arena, nor in any other than the United Center.
That would be the fitting way to finish, at home, waving another trophy, planting one last kiss on the great golden souvenir, a moment to save of all that Jordan has meant, to Chicago, to the world.
The fact that there is less and less of Jordan is beginning to dawn on more and more people.
Farewells are in type and on tape and will be used even before the word is final.
Yet what seems to be becoming clearer and clearer is that the world is ready for Jordan to leave, ready for the Bulls to finish, win, lose or whine.
The rest of us will take care of the gibberish, and that is what it will be if Stern is any indication.
A sample: “I think I am quoted in a recent article . . . in the New Yorker,” Stern said, “where (Jordan) happens to be a very nice person, that you’d like to have as your friend.”
Nice of Stern to share that with those of us who missed that particular issue.
Stern’s eulogy will not be the one used when Jordan leaves basketball.
“The notion that someone could call me up from Milan on Monday to say that the game that he watched from the German channel DSF at 3 in the morning on a Sunday night because the Italian channel was tape-delaying it, although he got his results from CNN and NBA.com . . . those notions did not exist in the early ’80s.
“Into this exploding stage walked a player of extraordinary talent and extraordinary personality.”
Drone on, commish, drone on. Jordan may be three years into retirement before Stern is finished.
This series will be into Game 3, in any case.