Short answers, pulled from the story.
David Stern served as NBA commissioner for exactly 30 years, from the 1st of February 1984 to the 1st of February 2014. At the time of his retirement, he was the longest-tenured commissioner in the history of major North American sports leagues, though that record has since been broken.
Stern pursued international growth through television deals, training camps, exhibition games, and recruiting international players. In his first year as commissioner he sold Argentine television the rights to weekly NBA highlights for two thousand dollars a year, and in 1987 he began shipping VHS tapes to China's state-run television station. By the end of his tenure the NBA broadcast to over 200 territories in more than 40 languages, with 12 offices outside the United States.
Stern helped found the Women's National Basketball Association and the NBA G League, the league's development arm. Both were established during his tenure as commissioner.
Before the 2005-06 season, Stern announced a policy banning NBA players from wearing headphones, chains, sleeveless shirts, T-shirts, indoor sunglasses, and baseball caps during NBA-related public appearances. Allen Iverson criticized the policy, saying it targeted players who dressed in a hip-hop style and that the league had gone "way overboard." A decade later the policy was credited with contributing to a high-fashion trend among NBA players.
Stern was seated beside Magic Johnson at the press conference where Johnson announced he was HIV-positive and retiring from basketball in 1991. After reading medical literature and consulting experts, Stern allowed Johnson to play in the 1992 NBA All-Star Game and on the U.S. Olympic Dream Team. The NBA also introduced new infection-control procedures, ending its prior practice of allowing players to remain on the court while bleeding.
David Stern died in Manhattan on the 1st of January 2020, at age 77. He had suffered a brain hemorrhage on the 12th of December 2019, and underwent emergency surgery but did not recover. All NBA teams wore black bands on their jerseys for the remainder of the 2019-20 season in remembrance.