NBA Commish Stern To Referee Finals Singlehandedly

Telling a hastily assembled New York press conference “I’m the only one I can trust,” longtime NBA commissioner David Stern announced his plans to referee the entire Lakers-Celtics Finals, which start tonight in Boston, singlehandedly.

“I want to act to restore the confidence of our fans, broadcast partners, and sponsors in the integrity of the League,” Stern said, citing mounting concern over the fairness of refereeing during earlier rounds of the 2008 NBA Playoffs, where home teams won virtually every game, the East-dominating Celtics were taken to full seven-game series by weaker teams, and a controversial non-call against the Lakers may have pushed the San Antonio Spurs to a sudden Western Conference Finals exit.

“I have been working out on a Stairmaster my wife bought me in order to be in peak physical shape,” Stern said. “I’m up to five minutes a day.”

He also told the media that he had practiced using a whistle, which he had borrowed from the night doorman at his Park Avenue residence.

“There have been too many concerns about favoritism and partisanship among our referees,” Stern said, “who, I assure you, compare favorably, on a statistical basis, with many Eastern European basketball divisions. So I thought the right thing was to step in and do the job myself.”

Stern looked sleep-deprived in the news conference, which he attributed to “late nights studying the NBA rule book so I can be truly prepared for the epic Lakers-Celtics series. Did you guys know you’re not allowed to run with the ball in basketball? I didn’t know that.”

Stern has promised to call fouls evenly on both teams, unless “the score starts to get out of hand and one team needs some breaks to get it back in the game.”

As for favoring star players and not calling fouls on them, Stern told reporters, “If a major player like a Kobe or a Kevin Garnett commits what I consider a small or trivial foul, I will only count that as half a foul, because nobody’s paying good money to sit courtside and watch Luke Walton or that guy Rondo for Boston.”

In the event that he inadvertently gives too many fouls and all players on both teams foul out, Stern said he would play a singlehanded game of H-O-R-S-E, first pretending to be the Lakers and then pretending to be the Celtics, and that he would then award himself the Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy on behalf of the winning team and spray himself with Champagne.