Weekly Countown: Stern takes global initiatives all the way to UN

In one the NBA's many international clinics, Caron Butler teaches fundamentals to students in Shanghai, China. AP

This is the last of a three-part series based on my recent run of interviews with David Stern, in which the NBA commissioner initially dealt with the possibility of a woman playing in the NBA, and, last week, with the equally controversial prospect of legalized sports betting and other topics. I haven't mentioned until now that this is a three-part series, mainly because I don't know many people who actually bother to read three-part series and so I didn't want to scare anyone off.

Today, we take a global view of the NBA, starting with a highly unusual cocktail party two weeks ago to which I was invited, with the unspoken understanding that I refrain from pestering the guests.

5 Means to a global call

• A night with the UN. While other leagues have holiday parties this time of year, Stern prefers to entertain the 15 representatives of the United Nations Security Council. "Five end their terms on Dec. 31, and five start on Jan. 1, so we invited all 20," he said. "Eighteen came."

The event was held at Madison Square Garden on Dec. 1, a night when the Knicks happened to be roughing up the visiting Suns 126-99. Stern was seated precariously on a tiny round end table wedged into a corner of the two upper-level suites occupied by his party. The ambassadors roamed in and out of the rooms, several of them wearing blue and orange Knicks caps and/or T-shirts.

"The big guy is here too: Secretary-General," said Stern, pointing to the name of Ban Ki-moon on the manifest. "It's just a place for them to relax in a casual setting outside of the UN, and the ones who have been here in the past, they remember the times they've had."

They dined before the game in a private room downstairs amid welcoming speeches by Stern, Knicks owner James Dolan, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Condoleezza Rice. Next they were led upstairs to the suites in time to hear President Obama's live speech outlining his policy on Afghanistan.

"Right here," said Stern, pointing up at a small TV screen on the wall. "We turned up the sound in both suites and we watched it here."

Retired shot-blocker Dikembe Mutombo, who was scheduled to depart the following day to dedicate new basketball courts on behalf of the NBA in India, was engaging in humorous evangelism with anyone who wished to come by. "They're getting a big kick out of him," said Stern. "We're stressing to the representatives that sport has transcendent value. Yes, there's a business, but more important, teamwork, discipline, exercise, fitness, health -- they're becoming more relevant, having to do with healthcare and the like. And as values, they're actually more important than ever."

This evening was a prominent example of how fast and far the NBA has surfed the changing global waves, from the Cold War through the Dream Team, and now into this melting-pot arena in which players and UN ambassadors pass by from all corners of the world. As he made the rounds, Stern chatted with the Turkish ambassador about the FIBA World Championships coming next August to his country, and the French ambassador about his 10 countrymen playing in the NBA, and the Nigerian ambassador about the legacy of Hakeem Olajuwon.

"By the way," said Stern, "we've got Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina here too." He looked as happy as a commissioner can be in the midst of a recession, with a potential lockout around the corner.

• The Afghan women. Last month, a delegation of women basketball players from Afghanistan -- all 17 and under -- visited the Washington Wizards and the Knicks as part of an international sports program drawn up by the U.S. State Department. "It was amazing just to see the looks on their faces, to talk to some of these girls who lost their families and the things they have to deal with in their lives that we have no concept of," said Wizards VP Tommy Sheppard. "We had a great time before the game, we watched warm-ups, put them up in a suite. You forget how fun it is to meet an NBA player until you watch somebody else [meet one] for the first time.''

The girls had been drawn from a variety of provinces. "It was overwhelming to hear the stories of what it took for them to practice, to get everybody under one roof for one night," said Sheppard. "And then for them to go play a game was such an unbelievable undertaking.

"Basketball is not big there, but this was a really big thing to see their amazement at being able to take in an NBA game and watch players play a game these girls know how to play, and to see the skill level. They saw Gheorghe Muresan [who is 7-foot-7] and they saw Earl Boykins [5-5]. One of the girls said, 'Every basketball player comes in different shapes and sizes.'

"I really try to share with a group like this that we all have one thing in common. We all love basketball. You're from Afghanistan, I'm from New Mexico. We have nothing else in common, but when we talk about basketball we all have a lot in common. We all have dreams, we all love the game.

"There's something about that look in the eyes," said Sheppard. "These kids have all seen too much at such a young age."

• The hoops ambassador. Kim Bohuny was launching her career as research manager for the Goodwill Games when she met Stern in 1988 during an Atlanta Hawks' tour of the Soviet Union. "He was already planning to expand globally," said Bohuny via e-mail during a trip this week through Frankfurt, Germany. By 1990, Stern had hired her to develop international coaching clinics as well as NBA games and other events abroad.

"I travel about 35-40 percent of the year,"' she said. "During the season, I try to visit each of the [83] NBA international players." And that appears to be the least complicated of her duties.

It's easy to understand why Bohuny was needed. Consider the larger basketball world Stern sought to invade after he became commissioner in 1984: It was a world of amateur federations and career politicians who claimed to pursue an agenda that transcended profit and loss, and here came young Stern, overseer of the only profitable basketball league on the planet.

Bohuny became his ambassador. She developed relationships with the 213 basketball federations and professional leagues around the world, dissolving the tensions and misunderstandings and creating unlikely partnerships. No executive in American professional sports has a job description quite so nuanced as the NBA's VP of basketball operations-international. Bohuny oversees Basketball Without Borders and other camps and clinics around the world, she works closely with USA Basketball to plan the annual schedule for the Olympic team and she deals with the U.S. government on all kinds of larger basketball initiatives.

The small talk with foreign ambassadors, the goodwill visits by young players from every corner of the planet, the overseas work of NBA players and coaches visiting foreign countries on behalf of Basketball Without Borders -- all of it advances the NBA's mission, as Stern sees it. These non-profit works help introduce the NBA as an American business with interests that go beyond the pursuit of profit. Everyone understands the ultimate goal is to make money -- Stern's plan is to grow revenue from the seeds he has planted around the world -- but the goodwill gestures and the diplomacy of Bohuny and her international staff have helped find middle ground with federations that have no understanding for the bottom-line needs of business.

"We see that as a huge opportunity," said Stern of charitable programs like Basketball Without Borders. "And honestly, our biggest concern is whether we're up to doing justice by it ... It ultimately is good for business. It's a very important thing for our employees, my colleagues. It motivates us in what we can do, it's good for our communities, for our players, our owners and teams."

• The tall Russian. Billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov is on the verge of becoming the first foreign-based owner of an NBA team. He won't buy the New Jersey Nets unless they're able to consummate their long-anticipated move to Brooklyn, but the franchise appears to be closer than ever to that goal. "The New Jersey sale is just a new chapter in U.S. sports, but [elsewhere], it isn't so new," said Stern. "The Mariners have been owned by a Japanese enterprise for 15 years."

English soccer clubs are owned by Russians and Americans, in addition to Brits themselves, and Stern envies that model. Not only does it further connect the NBA beyond its American borders, but it opens the league to new waves of cash with the prospect of raising the prices of NBA franchises, much the same as values of English clubs have grown amid the international competition to buy them.

"The second branch of this internationalization issue is now we're in the process of approving a Chinese owner for a limited partnership in Cleveland to become minority owners of the Cavaliers, a Russian owner for a majority share of the Nets, and we have four important Chinese enterprises that have invested in the NBA In China," said Stern, who went on to name all four. "We like the idea that they're becoming more interested in the NBA in the U.S., and that's very consistent with a rise in franchise values."

• The NBA dream. Midway through his teenage years, Omri Casspi found himself dreaming of playing in the NBA. He had no reason to think such thoughts: He was from Israel, a small country that had never produced an NBA talent. "Anybody that plays basketball dreams about NBA," he said after a pre-game shootaround with the Sacramento Kings on the day of a recent game in Portland. "That's the best thing in the world. I dream about being the best in my country, and then when I got older I started dreaming about the NBA."

Last spring, during a trip to Barcelona to write a story on Ricky Rubio, I ran into Maccabi Tel Aviv president Shimon Mizrahi. We were staying in the same hotel, and over breakfast, he, too, spoke with pride and hope that Casspi would be drafted and play in the NBA -- even though it would mean losing his best player. Now, Casspi is averaging 11.4 points off the bench for the Kings and playing with a ferocity that makes not only his fellow Israelis proud, but also the Kings for being smart enough to pick him in the first round (23rd overall).

"Who is your favorite NBA player?" I asked Casspi last week.

"No favorite player," he said. "Not anymore." They are all his rivals now.