Former NBA commissioner David Stern has been keenly watching successor Adam Silver run the show since he retired from his post five years ago. Stern has seen the nature of this era of player power and most recently how Anthony Davis staged his exit to play for the Los Angeles Lakers.

Asked if this mission by Davis and LeBron James to play together in LA was good for the league, Stern gave his heartfelt thoughts on the matter:

“I don’t think that I would categorize it as LeBron and Anthony Davis,” said Stern, according to Marc J. Spears of The Undefeated. “I think that Anthony Davis decided that he had been assigned to New Orleans for a given number of years and in that period of time there was not a team put around him that was capable of regularly getting into the playoffs. And he said, ‘I’m out of here.’ And he notified them. I think that it could have been done in a quieter way. I don’t agree with his agent’s public announcement, but he notified the team in one way or another and the team did very well in trading him to the Lakers. That’s all.”

Stern noted this was hardly the first time a star player has requested a trade, pointing to how Kareem Abdul-Jabbar once machinated his exit from Milwaukee:

“And that’s been something that’s happened for years,” added Stern. “I was a fan when Kareem Abdul-Jabbar wanted out of Milwaukee and wanted to go to the Lakers. And there was some equally robust trade that was made to accommodate him. It’s something that’s happened in our sport for years and years.”

The difference, however, was how Abdul-Jabbar handled his exit. The big dipper frankly said Milwaukee did not meet his cultural needs and that was the reason for his desire to leave.

On the other hand, Davis seemed troubled between retaining his image as a loyal star player and doing what he hired his agent Rich Paul for over the summer, staging his soon-to-be exit from the New Orleans Pelicans.