PRESS clippings and notes are scattered around a Shanghai hotel room doubling up as headquarters of the 2012 NBA China Games. These exhibition games pit the Miami Heat, with its Big Three, LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh, against the Los Angeles Clippers, whose top names include fellow NBA All-Stars Chris Paul and Blake Griffin.

At the bottom of one piece of paper a printed line reads: "Big is here."

And on a sunny Friday afternoon in Shanghai, in a room overlooking the Huangpu River and downtown, "Big" - perhaps one of the biggest ever in North America's National Basketball Association - is indeed here, sitting opposite, in the shape of NBA commissioner David Stern.

Stern has just said this year has been "the best ever" for the league, with successes including developments in e-commerce, digital initiatives and, especially, "the ongoing and renewing relationship with the China Basketball Association."

However, Stern imparts all this without much apparent enthusiasm in his voice, like each time he announces the first pick of NBA draft every year on a flash-bombed stage and shakes hands with the greatest players, such as Michael Jordan and Chinese icon Yao Ming.

The son of a New York delicatessen owner, 70-year-old Stern has occupied the NBA throne for 28 years, guiding the league through the prime of Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Michael Jordan, and also the prime of his own career, though time dictates that he will have to pass on the torch in the next few years.

Perhaps Stern hopes China will provide him with a final hurrah, although ironically, at a time when not a single player from China is turning out for an NBA team.

"Could this China Games be your last trip to China as commissioner?"

"No."

Stern's answer is quick and decisive.

"In the next 15 years, the plan is to develop basketball in China," said Stern. He said something similar 15 years ago in 1997 when the goals were laid out as: promote NBA games through television; get more children playing basketball; cultivate the market in China. And Stern had an eye on the Chinese market long before that. A famous anecdote relates how in 1989 Stern had to wait in the security guard box outside China Central Television in Beijing as he sought to provide footage of NBA games to executives and persuade them to broadcast it.

"I didn't have an appointment then," Stern laughed at being reminded of the incident. But he shortly after signed the first contract with CCTV - at a time when many Chinese households were still thrilled by the novelty of owning their first television set.

A boost occurred with the heady days when Shanghai's Yao Ming made his 2002 breakthrough in the NBA, giving Chinese viewers a homegrown talent to cheer. This direct link has now been lost with the 2.29-meter tall icon retiring last year.

But Stern is upbeat about the prospects of unearthing another Chinese talent. "I don't believe Yao Ming is going to be the last great basketball player from China," he said. "He is only the first."

Asked if the NBA scouts have identified other potential Chinese stars, the commissioner responded with a terse, "yes," without wishing to elaborate too much. "I cannot identify them now because it will put too much pressure on them," he explained.

Part of blueprint

The young Chinese players may be step out onto the stage in the next two to five years, he added. "You'd better go to the Dongguan Basketball School yourself to find out."

The basketball school, in southern China's Guangdong Province, is the first training center franchised by the NBA in China to train the players between the age of 12 and 17 and is just one part of the blueprint Stern and his team has drawn up to extend the NBA's appeal in China, its largest foreign market.

And yesterday it was announced that the NBA and a Chinese partner plan to open a 11,100-square-meter basketball center in Tianjin in northeast China, complete with NBA-style courts and leisure facilities.

Stern's right-handed men, Adam Silver and David Shoemaker, sat by the commissioner's sides, listening intently as their boss did most of the talking, but still eager to offer a contribution on a few occasions Stern granted them.

Shoemaker said that they have been talking with Yao during the NBA China Games "mainly about next phase of our partnership," hinting that an important announcement concerning will soon to made.

Silver said the television ratings for NBA games broadcast in China have been climbing quickly, "as fast as in the United States," even after Yao's retirement.

But not everything's rosy in the NBA garden with regards to China. One issue is the absence of players from China in the league.

Yi Jinalian, a promising Chinese player who entered NBA after Yao failed to get the same attention as his compatriot and did not get enough court time, will return to China this season to play for his home team in Guangdong Province. This, together with the fact that no Chinese player joined the NBA draft pick this year, means there will be no Chinese representation in the NBA this season.

China Central Television, the country's major broadcast platform for NBA games, has cut its number of live games to two a week, down from more than four when Yao was on court. A CCTV spokesman said viewer numbers for domestic CBA games sometimes exceeded those for NBA fixtures.

Moreover, some Chinese reporters stationed in the US to cover NBA games have been brought home.

Critics say even the sell-out crowds for all the 2012 China Games - even with some tickets priced at 6,000 yuan (US$957.3) - simply suggests the eagerness of Chinese fans to see champion the Miami Heat and "King James" - LeBron James. Stern though insists he selected the teams even before the Heat was crowned last season.

"Chinese fans are sophisticated," Stern stated several times during our conversation. "Chinese fans had an exciting season, they care about good games."

Despite Stern's insistence that he doesn't worry about the health of the China market in these post-Yao days, he is acutely aware of the value of this global icon in China. These days Yao is a businessman who part-owns the Shanghai Sharks basketball team where he began his career and is involved in the wine trade. He has also indicated that he is willing to continue providing a bridge between China and the NBA.

Meanwhile, Stern also sees possibilities in new platforms. "The most important thing is that we are in the market," he said, looking at e-commerce opportunities with T-Mall, QQ and Vancl. "The conversations that go on among our fans on social media sites is an entirely new area for us to focus on and to grow."

Stern has been commissioner since 1984 and has been involved with the NBA since the late 1960s. The New York Times said he is "better than any modern-day league sports executive," as he transformed a small basketball league into a sports empire which now brings in more than US$4 billion dollars revenue a year.

"He managed for a time to straddle that fine line of contractual allegiance while leading owners and players past one marketing threshold after another," said the newspaper.

Once referred by the Sports Illustrated as a "real business rock star," Stern has overseen the league become a worldwide phenomenon televised in 215 countries and territories in more than 40 languages.

He has been the NBA's top man for so long that for many basketball fans he is simply "the commissioner."

But it has been remarked that, of late, he has seemed more somber and subdued, especially during labor tensions and last season's lockout which saw each team play only 66 regular games, instead of the usual 82.

"Commissioners are charged with the task of providing discipline in their leagues. When a player, owner or agent brings the game into disrepute, the American system of league governance requires the commissioner to take decisive action," said Rick Burton, a professor of sport management at Syracuse University in New York.

Disgruntled fans

Burton, a past commissioner of the National Basketball League of Australia, said he fully understands the challenges Stern faces: labor negotiations; unhappy player and referee unions; unhappy owners; demanding corporate sponsors; ratings-driven television partners; scathing media criticism and disgruntled fans, convinced other teams are cheating.

Canceling games, which angers sponsors, leaves fans disillusioned and destroys years of accumulated good will, is not the answer and Stern knows that, said Burton. "It is not an easy task," he added.

David Halberstam, the late renowned American reporter, observed during the 1998-99 lockouts that it was as if Stern "was lamenting the loss of a once-vital human connection to the league's players, what he thought of as a special partnership with them."

On that occasion, marketing man extraordinaire Stern ended up sporting a beard after vowing he would not shave until an agreement was worked out.

But this time, Stern made no such vow and appeared worn out at times during the seesaw negotiations last fall. He has been grooming Silver, also known as a tough negotiator, for several years and it was during last season's All-Star games that Stern announced his intention to retire before 2017, with Silver his successor.

When he does finally hand over the baton, Stern will leave behind a league that has changed immeasurably since he began his tenure in 1984.

"Ownership has changed, the players have changed, the media has changed - the whole landscape has changed," said Jerry Colangelo, the former Phoenix Suns owner and a longtime Stern ally. "And in the past five to seven years, I've also seen some changes in David. He is a survivor and a competitor, but put it this way: some of the stuff has worn on him."

But weariness was not readily apparent on Stern's face on Friday afternoon in Shanghai. He talked slowly, but in measured, confident tones, and dismissed talk that the pressures of the job had taken their toll.

"In life, you always think about things that you might have done differently or better, whether in business or in your personal life, as a father or a husband. If you think, you come up with ways you can learn and can improve yourself," Stern said.

With that, Stern said his goodbyes ambled slowly out of the hotel room, heading for dinner, with everyone else following in his wake.

The commissioner may have faced tough challenges of late, but he's still leading the way.