One of the most hated figures in professional sports over the past year or so has been none other than NBA Commissioner David Stern. Despite a very successful run as the league’s commissioner thus far, Stern dropped the ball so to speak dealing with the NBA lockout this summer. With Stern being the face of evil in many NBA fans’ minds, the commissioner really got hit with a lot of criticism for not getting having the NBA season start on time.

Shortly after the NBA lockout fiasco was officially over with a start date of Christmas Day for the 2011-12 NBA season, David Stern received even harsher criticism for his role in the vetoed trade which was supposed to send perennial All-Star point guard Chris Paul to the Los Angeles Lakers from the New Orleans Hornets. With the NBA owning the Hornets, they had the power to veto to the trade and did so claiming it was for basketball reasons.

That vetoed trade caused quite a stir in the NBA and wreaked havoc on the Los Angeles Lakers franchise that had to deal with two upset stars in Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom.

Now it appears that NBA Commissioner David Stern may be at it again with his public comments about possibly changing the age rule in the NBA. The current rule has the league only allowing 19-year-olds to be drafted. No players are allowed to make the jump straight from high school like Kobe Bryant, LeBron James and Dwight Howard did.

The new rule that David Stern would like to see go into effect would add one more year to the age requirement. This is what Stern believes will promote college educated athletes and more competition on the collegiate level.

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