First the good.

NBA commissioner David Stern has done an amazing job building the NBA into a profit and marketing machine in his nearly three decades at the helm.

Stern, who recently announced he will step down from his post in early 2014, did a superb job of promoting the game’s top players over the years, like Larry, Michael and Magic, on a worldwide basis.

The NBA, once in danger of not surviving has beenthriving and Stern deserves some credit for that.

Now for the bad.

The league has done a poor job of putting up with bad characters, most recently like the twice-suspended Delonte West and players like Rasheed Wallace, Dennis Rodman and the former Ron Artest.

“World Peace”, ha! He couldn’t even be peaceful on a great Lakers team.

And how about all the tattoos? Ridiculous and cruddy looking at the least on many, many players.

And then buying into Jay Z, or rather allowing him to buy into the Brooklyn Nets.

Having the explicit-language using rapper be a big part of the NBA doesn’t exactly send a great  message.

I would love it someday if positive rap music made some kind of inroad into music rather than the type that puts down women and extols violence.

But that’s another post entirely.

For now, we’ll just wish David Stern well in his retirement.  But here’s wishing he had been more of a moral leader of the great league.