No, Stern spearheaded the NBA marketing blitz. There were always very good players in the league, but they never had the same media machine behind them, and that was Stern's doing. You think he was just sitting there the whole time with his thumb up his ass or something?Of course he has something to do with the exponential growth of the NBA.
Gary Bettman is the worst commissioner ever, though. Selig gets all the hate, but in light of all his bumbling, he's presided over the Great Baseball Renaissance, and he's been a big part of putting those wheels into motion. I think deep down he really cares about the game of baseball and wants to do his best, but he's just sort of a schmuck. Whereas you know Bud loves baseball, you can tell Bettman doesn't give a shit about hockey. He's one of Stern's underlings that the league imported in order to implement the same marketing magic that the NBA had, which takes us full-circle to David Stern being brilliant.