The Larry O'Brien Trophy, most coveted team prize in the NBA, should really be renamed as The David Stern Trophy
We explain why the change is overdue ... and why it likely won't happen
You knew a road team would win a game in these playoffs eventually.
It finally happened twice Tuesday night after an 0-12 start for away teams … something we haven't seen in the NBA since 2004.
I am equally confident that Denver's Playoff Jamal Murray, who hates that we call him that but keeps forcing us to call him that, will make it to the All-Star Game someday, too.
You just don't want to go overboard with loud declarations just a few days into the NBA playoffs. Not yet. So I won't take it too much farther at this early juncture.
Please just allow me to put it on record, at the (relative) start of these playoffs, that I think this should be the last postseason that the NBA's championship trophy bears a name other than David J. Stern's.
Yes: I'm advocating for a name change to the most coveted team trophy in basketball to bring an end to the NBA's struggle to find a way properly honor Stern's legacy ... even though I realize this suggestion is not likely to come to fruition.
The foremost team prize in #thisleague was named in Larry O'Brien's honor and billed as such for the first time during the 1983-84 NBA Finals … mere months after Stern succeeded O'Brien as commissioner.
Thanks to a marketing push in recent years, it's become reflexive for modern NBA fans to talk about the Larry O'Brien Trophy — or even refer to it, shorthand style, as The Larry or the LOB — when it didn't start out that way at all and never came close to rivaling the cachet or prestige of hockey's Stanley Cup.
Yet more than four years have passed now since Stern's death on Jan. 1, 2020 — with the NBA still searching for the proper way to pay suitable homage to the commissioner who, whether you liked him or not, undeniably ranks as the most accomplished and transcendent of Adam Silver's four predecessors to hold the post.
Remember also that the precedent has been set for precisely the sort of trophy tweak I am proposing. The league announced a slew of new trophy honorees in December 2022 ... including the unilateral decision to strip Maurice Podoloff's name from the annual regular-season MVP award and turn it into the Michael Jordan Trophy.
If Podoloff, who served as the NBA's first commissioner from 1946 through 1963, can essentially have his legacy transferred from the MVP trophy to a new trophy that the league invented to award to the team with the best overall record at the end of the regular season, why can't the same happen with The Larry?
Deep down I know the reason. The NBA's regular-season MVP trophy was never really marketed as the Maurice Podoloff Trophy, allowing that switch to go virtually unnoticed, whereas The Larry has become a real thing that the league has gradually managed to give a life of its own.
The above video is one example. Here's another: The trophy has its own Instagram account now.
Yet all that means that the league's inability to immortalize Stern's name just dribbles on. The NBA simply hasn't been able to pinpoint a prize commensurate with the stature of Stern's 30-year run as The Commish. No other commissioner, for the record, has held the post for longer than Podoloff's 17 years and O'Brien actually had the shortest tenure in league history. Even Silver, who reached 10 years as commissioner on Feb. 1, has held the title longer than O'Brien did (nine years).
As covered many times on this Substack, past suggestions that the league's In-Season Tournament would be branded as The Stern Cup were ultimately waved away ... and wisely so. The In-Season Tournament simply isn't a big enough deal yet to bear Stern's name. Nor is it guaranteed to stay on the NBA calendar permanently. It wouldn't be a terrible look to call it The Stern Cup and then someday decide to abandon it.
The belief here is that Stern and the NBA's championship spoils just go together better than anything else you could suggest. Just as Jordan's name makes so much sense on the MVP trophy. Just as Bill Russell's name is perfect on the NBA Finals MVP trophy. Just as Kobe Bryant is such a fitting figure to appear on the All-Star Game's MVP trophy.
It's way too soon, entering Day 5 of these playoffs, to know who will lift the Larry O'Brien Trophy this June.
What I am sure of on this, uh, Newsletter Wednesday — which features a belated distribution of the Tuesday Newsletter Extravaganza thanks to my coverage responsibilities from one of those two long-awaited road victories (Mavericks over Clippers) — is that a transfer of championship trophy identity from O'Brien to Stern is an overdue move.
No matter how initially uncomfortable it might be.
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An evening walk
It doesn’t get much more convenient for out-of-town scribes than staying at L.A. Live to cover the Lakers or the Clippers. The office is mere steps away and there's the tremendous bonus of avoiding L.A.’s notorious trafic.
Yet another perk: It was especially tranquil Monday night when I stepped outside for a walk around the block on the eve of Mavericks/Clippers Game 2 and found a moment to snap a picture of the new Kobe Bryant statue outside Crytpo.com Arena without anyone else in the frame.
This is easier said than done, because one thing I’ve noticed since arriving in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday night is that there is almost always foot traffic around the arena — even late at night — because so many fans want to bask in the statue, take pictures, etc.
Industry Development of the Week
The goal is to publish my weekly This Week In Basketball column on Sundays. A road game in Los Angeles and the coverage responsibilities involved made that impossible.
So …
This Week In Basketball can (not) only weigh in on every playoff series but also pay homage to Blake Griffin
LOS ANGELES — What a circus of a week we just had in the NBA. It actually began quietly with zero coaching dismissals on the Monday after the regular season ended — very much unlike the NFL — but it proved to be a roller-coaster anyway. There were devastating Play-In Tournament injuries sustained by Zion Williamson and Jimmy Butler, Golden State's immediate demise in its PIT opener at Sacramento, failure for both the Kings and the Chicago Bulls to take advantage of the wounded Pelicans or Heat in their win-or-go-home PIT games ... and then an 8-0 whitewash for home teams on the opening weekend of the playoffs for the first time since 2013.
With my latest TWIB compilation running both late and much longer than usual by the time it went to print Monday, I decided to shift one item into this (sadly also delayed) Tuesday Newsletter Extravaganza: Industry Development of the Week.
Which was actually a thunderbolt development.
Earlier this month, Winter stunningly revealed that he had been made redundant (Brit-speak for layoffs) by The Times of London. He was the venerable newspaper's Chief Football Writer and, having gone through a similar experience myself as detailed in yesterday’s column — albeit not with anywhere near Winter's level of acclaim — I was legitimately thrilled (and inspired) to see him immediately start publishing a Substack of his own in response.
Here is more coverage from The Press Gazette in England on Winter's move.
Numbers Game
🏀 25
The nostalgist in me was pleased to be here to see the Clippers at Crypto.com Arena a couple more times before they complete their 25-season stay at the building formerly known at Staples Center. The Clippers, of course, begin play next season at the new Intuit Dome in Inglewood, Calif.
🏀 17
Maybe it felt like longer because the team was so unsuccessful in its Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena days, but the Clippers spent only 17 seasons by comparison at its first L.A. home from 1984-85 through the lockout-shortened season of 1999. I was a Clippers beat writer there for The Los Angeles Daily News for part of the 1993-94 season and then 1994-95.
🏀 23.6
Through the first two games of its first-round series against Cleveland, Orlando is 17-for-72 from 3-point range for a conversion rate of just 23.6%. The Magic haven't led for a single second of the series yet as it shifts to Orlando for Thursday's Game 3.
🏀 29.1
I was way off Monday with the proclamation that New York's Jalen Brunson wouldn't shoot 8-for-26 again in Game 2. He shot it even worse in the second game of the Knicks' series against Philadelphia, but Brunson's 8-for-29 showing didn't prevent his team from seizing a 2-0 series lead in our first ref-controversy-marred finish of these playoffs. Brunson is shooting 29.1% from the floor in this series.
🏀 47.9
That's the same Brunson, remember, who shot 47.9% from the field at a mere (listed) 6-foot-2 to barge his way into this season's MVP conversation.
🏀 6
Leave it to my pal Tim Reynolds, who undoubtedly does keep track of things for The Associated Press, to inform us that Donte DiVincenzo's go-ahead shot elicited the sixth Double Bang call of Mike Breen's legendary broadcasting career.
🏀 18
Another Reynolds Special: There were 18 teams in the league this season with at least 46 wins. Last season there were eight. Two of those 18 teams, of course, failed to even reach the playoffs because they play in #thiswest: No. 9 Sacramento and No. 10 were both 46-36.
🏀 15
The Lakers' failure to win Monday night at Denver featured the second-largest blown halftime lead (15 points) in the team's playoff history. The Lakers lost to Boston in Game 4 of the 2008 NBA Finals despite holding an 18-point halftime lead, according to research from my fellow Substacker Justin Kubatko.
🏀 284
LeBron James has played in more playoff games than any other NBA player at 284 and thus needs only 16 more to reach 300. James' record in those games, after six consecutive playoff losses for the first time in his career -- all to the Denver Nuggets — is 182-102.
🏀 49-33
Good catch by reader Peter Friedman on a small gaffe I made in a recent piece. The Suns' 49-33 record in 1971-72 — best ever for an NBA team that missed the playoffs — left Phoenix in fifth place (rather than fourth) in the Western Conference that season. The Suns finished behind the 69-13 Lakers, 63-19 Bucks, 57-25 Bulls and the 51-31 Warriors.
🏀 8
The Charlotte Hornets now possess the league's longest playoff active drought at eight seasons and counting. San Antonio and Detroit are next in line at five consecutive non-playoff seasons. (It's a pain I know well as a Buffalo Sabres fan whose team has missed the playoffs for an NHL-record 13 seasons in a row.)
🏀 10
Boston leads the league with a current streak of 10 consecutive playoff appearances, followed by Milwaukee (eight), Philadelphia (seven) and the defending champions from Denver (six).
🏀 97.1
One last reminder before we go: I'm on the radio Saturdays from noon to 1 PM CT on 97.1 (FM) The Freak in Dallas with an hour of live NBA talk presented by Panini Trading Cards and Collectibles. Join us online by clicking the link embedded in this sentence or via the iHeart radio app to listen to The Saturday Stein Line on this or any Saturday ... or catch the podcasted version of the show once it drops via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or #whereveryougetyourpodcasts. And remember: Click the microphone icon on the 97.1 (FM) The Freak feed on the iHeart Radio app to leave a 30-second message or a question for me to answer on an upcoming show.
Marc .... When we did David's final sitdown interview for the Mike Wise podcast in November of 2019, Mike asked him who was the most influential person in his life. He named three people. His father, whom he could never please. George Gallantz from the Proskauer Law Firm. And Larry O'Brien, whom David credited with knowing "how to get things done" and for his diplomatic and political skills. Given Stern's reverence for O'Brien, it's probably OK to leave the trophy as it is. What should be done is to have David's signature on every NBA court. Maybe not in the 94 by 50 area, but perhaps on one of the baselines or at halfcourt in front of the scorer's table as was the case with Bill Russell's #6 last season.
What about changing name of technical foul to Stern foul? Stern did so much for the league and was known as a strict enforcer
“Draymond Green has now been thrown out of the game after reviewing Double Sterns.”