David Joel Stern is the commissioner of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He began his association with the NBA in 1966 as outside counsel, joined the NBA in 1978 as General Counsel, and became the league's Executive Vice President in 1980. He became Commissioner in 1984, succeeding Larry O'Brien. Stern has served on the Rutgers University Board of Overseers and currently serves as Chair of the Board of Trustees of Columbia University. He is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

David Stern born on September 22, 1942 in New York City, New York to a Jewish family that lost several members in the holocaust. He grew up in Teaneck, New Jersey, and is a graduate of Teaneck High School. Stern attended Rutgers University. He graduated as a dean's-list history student in 1963 and graduated from Columbia Law School in 1966, and was admitted to the bar in New York later that year after passing the state's bar examination.

His first association with the NBA in 1966 was as an outside counsel. In 1978, Stern became the NBA's General Counsel. By 1980, he was Executive Vice President of the NBA. During this time two landmark decisions were reached with the NBA Players' Association: drug testing and team salary cap. The drug testing dealt with the perception that most basketball players used drugs, that the NBA admitted it had a problem, and it was cleaning it up. The salary cap created a revenue-sharing system where owner and player were effectively partners. Both of these agreements solidified Stern's standing inside NBA circles.