The World According To David Stern

It would be a vast understatement to say that Stern's staff is alert when gathered around him. His minions, pens poised for note taking, do attentiveness the way Nancy Reagan did adoration. Their efficiency is alarming. When a journalist travels with the commissioner, someone greets him on the tarmac, reaches around his neck to remove the credential from the Barcelona games and replaces it with the one for Rome. (In the real world a reporter could expire from thirst before an official would deign to point out the location of the press gate.) "David is extraordinarily demanding," says Messick, "because he understands how an event is supposed to be run. There's no part of the process he hasn't been through, so he gets frustrated when he doesn't see the results he's looking for."

But Stern can also be disarmingly informal. Even if this is studied, it works. Almost everyone calls him David. (When Stern is not around, a simple He is an adequate replacement. What did He think? Is He coming to the meeting?) The commissioner remembers the names of his employees. He swears strategically. The NBA hires an extraordinary number of eager beavers, and Stern is able to reach across the generation gap--partly because they're focused on pleasing him, of course, but partly because he can extemporize about the latest Xbox, the success of Grey's Anatomy or the stylistic differences between Adidas's Stella and Y3 models. That stuff doesn't slide easily out of the mouth of Bud Selig.

On the afternoon of Stern's final day on tour, in Cologne, about two dozen of the NBA's young international staffers gather in a hotel conference room at his request. Sitting comfortably at the head of the table, the commissioner asks each of them to state his or her name and length of employment. After Tom Marchesi, a young NBA International p.r. man, finishes, Stern nods approvingly. "I've been reading your stuff on BlackBerry," he says. You don't think young Marchesi would run through a wall for this guy?

When Stern himself finishes, everyone in the room applauds.

On his way out, he passes a reporter. "You look a little tired," Stern says. "Are you going to make it till the end of the day?"

And the NBA's alpha male marches on.