NBA Owners Must Force David Stern to Resign After Jim Rome Interview Blunder

After David Stern's thoughtless and careless response to an admittedly irresponsible question while appearing on Jim Rome's show, the NBA owners need to step up and demand that the commissioner of the NBA step down immediately. 

This isn't about any ridiculous conspiracy theories, even though that's what Rome's question pertained to. Whether or not Stern fixed the lottery or the 2012 NBA playoffs is irrelevant right now.

Here's what happened when Rome decided to broach that subject. 

Stern originally gave a responsible answer, just choosing to say that the lottery was not fixed and that Rome should be ashamed for even asking the question. However, upon being pressured by the show's host to change his answer, Stern asked Rome if he had stopped beating his wife. 

Now, that is far more unacceptable than any question Rome asked. Without missing a beat, Rome came up with the perfect response after defending his last question and contesting that it was a fair interview question: "Yeah, I dunno if that's fair." 

It's not fair. It's inappropriate, and there should be repercussions. 

If that had been one of Stern's players or owners, the retribution would have been swift and severe. Just because Stern is the one making the rules doesn't mean that he gets to be held to a higher standard. 

In Stern's mind, I'm sure that he simply thought he was following one stupid question with another stupid one. It's just that he could have picked any number of stupid questions to respond with and not one that referred to the touchy subject of domestic abuse. 

Lately, Stern hasn't been able to let the league have enough time to recover from a black eye before he gives it yet another one. 

In the past calendar year, the NBA suffered through a prolonged lockout under Stern's watch. The season was condensed to 66 games, and the compressed schedule may have altered the outcome of quite a few games and potentially even some playoff series. 

Just a short while after the lockout was lifted, we witnessed the Chris Paul fiasco. There was a clear conflict of interests during the trade, and Stern ended up reversing a trade that sent the best point guard in the league to the Los Angeles Lakers. It just so happened that the league controlled the New Orleans Hornets, who were the other major player in the deal.

After that, if we fast-forward to the present, there are constant allegations flowing through the interwebs that Stern has fixed both the NBA draft lottery and the playoffs.

It's too perfect, in the minds of some people, that the same Hornets that shipped off CP3 happened to win the Anthony Davis sweepstakes. It's too perfect that two of the most marketable teams with the biggest stars in the league happen to be playing in the NBA Finals. 

Regardless of whether or not those allegations are true, it's Stern's job to comfort NBA fans and make sure that the league continues to run smoothly and fairly. He's failed to do that for quite some time now, and his response to Rome is just the latest and most outrageous example. 

Stern's arrogance is giving the league a negative image. It's time for the owners to step up and attempt to remove him from the situation.