♪ >> from our studios in new york city, this is "charlie rose." >> bob simon was a friend and colleague at cbs news and spent five decades as a correspondent. earning every award journalism

has to offer, including 27 emmys. bob was killed in a car crash last night. he was 73. an executive producer called him a reporter's reporter, driven by natural curiosity. that took him all over the world, covering every story imaginable. there is no one else like bob simon. jeff had it right. earlier today, we reflected on his long and esteemed career as a colleague. >> as a globetrotting foreign correspondent, bob simon was a striking figure. his assignments, thousands of them took him to far corners of the earth. but it all began in vietnam. >> we're going to pick up an american. all we know about him is that he is at firebase andrews. he has been hit by shrapnel. >> a war simon covered for much of the 1970's, he was on one of the last american helicopters out of saigon. >> a tough statement, warning

israel against military intervention, was not taken at face value. >> >> simon was named chief middle east correspondent for cbs in 1987, reporting on conflict in the region for over 20 years. he witnessed the egyptian president's first visit to jerusalem, covered yitzhak rabin's assassination, and during the intifada captured the brutal beating of two palestinian teenagers with a telephoto lens. it was a powerful image of the conflict. >> it seemed cold, deliver it, methodical. it went on for 40 minutes. >> never one to shy away from war zones, he covered the opening days of the gulf war in 1991. but he ended up being part of the story when iraqi forces kept -- captured him and his crew. for 40 days, they were imprisoned, beaten, starved, and threatened with death.

he spoke about it with ed bradley. >> has it changed you? >> yeah. >> anyone, who watched simon's work on "60 minutes," knew his range as a reporter. his skill for storytelling and the grace of his words. >> before long, his house became a makeshift conservatory. every room, every corridor, no matter how small or dark or stifling was teeming with sound. >> he helped us understand the language of elephants. >> these fearsome noises are actually elephants greeting one another. glad to see you. come a little closer. >> and took us back to the nuclear calamity at fukushima. >> the disaster seems to have

stopped time. the clock shows 2:46, the moment the earthquake hit. the damage to shops and homes looks like it could have happened yesterday. >> he showed us the world world through the eyes of sudan's lost boys. >> when they saw their villages burning, they started running. streams of boys became rivers. hundreds became thousands. until an exodus of biblical portions was underway. >> and made us copper hand the normandy of the massacres -- you normandy of the massacres at srebenice. >> this is where the bodies are stored. a small fraction of the missing but more than anyone could happen. >> simon, the winner of 27 emmys, had a voice unlike anyone else. he came to this table five times. three times as a guest, and twice in my chair as anchor. >> i am bob simon of cbs news

sitting in for charlie rose. >> in 1992, he spoke about the 40 days he spent as a hostage during the persian gulf war. >> you got up that morning and turned into the most extraordinary time of your life , and what was going through your mind? >> what was going through my mind? not a hell of a lot. [laughter] >> it was not a prize-winning story. it was a day in the life. >> it took a lot of reflection later on to realize what an ordinary day it was. we were just, we were doing what we never convinced the iraqis we were doing. they couldn't believe that journalists behaved like that that western journalists would go out on their own. which we were not supposed to do according to american press restrictions. >> one of the reasons you were doing it?

>> we would have done it anyway. there was something going on, and we wanted to check out what was going on up north. we would have done it. it just so happened we were not supposed to do it and we did it anyway. even if we were doing it -- we were not just doing it out of spite. >> also doing that because of the number of wars you covered. you are concerned about the fact there was some effort to restrict you from following where you felt the story led to. >> perturbed, yeah, not as much as there was a cat and mouse game going and they were the cat and we were the mice. and, we had done it a few days earlier. as soon as the air war began our suspicions about how the pentagon planned to manage the press was confirmed. a few days earlier, my colleagues and i went on the border between saudi arabia and kuwait.

we happened to cross something that happened to not to be reported by the pentagon press corps. for example, a large saudi oil refinery was on fire because iraqi artillery had pummeled it, and an american marine unit was under fire. and the marines or not supposed -- were not supposed to talk to us. and also, some saudi defenders their tents were empty and they were not there. and we brought that material back to the cbs bureau and had what was in the context of that a pretty good story. because nobody else had it. absolutely what, as you know, it is all about. and so we went back a couple of days later to another part of the border. it was that routine. we did one story on friday and

another on sunday. and the military traffic we passed as we were going from where the base was up to the border, the military traffic was a story in itself. we had never seen anything like it anywhere ever. as i wrote i believe, it was not a series of convoys of both one -- but one never-ending convoy. we had quite a story ready. and we just wanted to flesh it out a bit. we strolled across the border. >> when did you know that this was going to be as harrowing as it turned out to be? it must have been a time in which you thought, i will be able to convince them i am a member of the press and they will understand and let me go and not believe i am a spy. the other end is you expressed it in the book, i can rot away in a prison and never get to see

my family. my body will be dumped somewhere. they won't know where i >> that am. is what the book is about. it is about the progress from thinking that i was still a reporter who could sweet talk his way out of a tough situation, as i have before, to thinking, i would either get killed pretty quick or rot away in an iraqi prison for the rest of my life. >> when did it switch? >> in fact, after the initial of -- rustin s of getting -- brusqueness of getting caught we were treated quite well for several hours. we were taken to a bunker and introduced to some very civil sophisticated english-speaking iraqi officers. they brought us tea. awfully nice fellows to chat with. my british colleague and i, we had been in stuff like this before.

we would take a couple cups of tea and cigarettes and some bad jokes, and we would be on our way. and a few hours later, they were beating us up badly in another place. that when they start beating you up badly, you realize the game is up. >> what goes through your mind? as hard as it is, take us to the feelings, what it is? >> it is something i tried to write about. it is difficult to explain. i tried. the most remarkable thing about getting beaten up badly, i thought it was just me, but i compared notes later with other people who had been p.o.w.'s. and the remarkable thing i experienced is that it is not as bad as i thought it would be.

i don't recommend it. it is not fun. but, after a while, i realized, i could get through it. i just hope they would leave my eyes alone and -- other parts. and it hurt like hell. but what this book is about is the big surprise, a series of surprises and what the surprises are is how incredibly adapted adapted and adaptable, we are to deal with situations we never anticipated. in 40 days, i kept on discovering and not me, bob simon, but me human being discovering things i never , thought. like -- being beaten up and i realized that, in a sort of strange way, my mind would

retreat and come back. and my mind was sort of synchronized with the blows. my mind was smarter. and it is tough to put into words, but i knew it would not break. >> did you find things about yourself that you liked, that you didn't know were there? >> not so much as bob simon. but as a guide. -- a guy. you discover quick, there is this implacable will to survive that had never been put to the test with me before. >> and driven by the love of your family? i don't want to put words in your mouth -- >> that might be sentimental. i think driven by this biological will to survive. that's just more powerful than you can experience.

until you are really up against it. you know it is there. it is there and it works. >> worst moment was? >> i am asked that sometimes. there were several. a whole bunch of worst moments. certainly the first time they formally accused me of being a spy. it was something i could get through. what you are up against in an experience like this are not bad moments like getting spat upon or being called bad names. but stuff you know could end your life or seriously cripple it. >> this is you in baghdad hotel. right after you came back. >> i cannot find a word for this. because "regret" is not a strong enough word. it might not be a strong enough word. for -- the pain i know i caused

my loved ones, i will try to make up for it in any way i can. and i thank god that the four of us are alive. >> you really said to yourself, "how could i have done this to my family?" how could i have put them through this. did you think about that every day? >> oh, sure. sure. >> when you were asked what the worst moment was, it wasn't a moment but because it was constant and what that was was the idea that they were going to kill me. i got to a point where i could deal with that in terms of them killing me. >> how could you get to a point? >> what i never got to the point of it that thing -- accepting was that if they were going to off me.

they would never admit they had us so i could just be disappeared and my family never would have known. there would not have been a body. >> that's exactly what political prisoners say. that is why they talk about human rights activities on their behalf make a difference. they are worried most of all -- i talked to a number of them -- nobody would know if they kill me. no one knows that i am here and no one will know if they take me somewhere. that's the ultimate fear. >> that's just another example. this club we belong to where we are not aware of. there is, sure, you go through this experience and others will say very similar things because that was it. i can picture my wife and daughter never not knowing what -- never knowing what had happened. i spent a lot of time over the years with families of the missing from vietnam and stories about them. and i know, these are people who

are haunted day in and day out. >> how has it changed you in terms of coverage? it looks like you had on military khakis. [laughter] >> if a year later, we cannot laugh about it, no point to survive. i have to make sure not to get captured again. that would be in very poor taste. >> how would you do it differently? >> i do not know. i do not think i have changed much. >> is your wife think you changed? [laughter] >> not really. i'm just as bad as i always was. >> unfortunately, she said. >> you know, you're going into this business because there's something about a big story that is more exciting than anything else. sometimes the big story is a war. sometimes it is not. i still want to be where the big story is. >> you want to be in the middle east? >> sure. >> good to have you. >> bob served as the correspondent and lived in israel for many years and talked

about the israeli-palestinian conflict and talked about in -- and the effect on the people there in 2009. tell me about what you did and what conclusions you have come to. >> while the gaza theater was lit up, our producer had the intelligent idea of sending us to the west bank, which was not getting any attention at all. but the west bank is the main battlefront, the main theater for the israeli-palestinian conflict. what we were going to see was whether peace was possible, or weathether peace had passed -- history had passed peace by. the solution for the west bank problem has always been or has been for many, many decades, the two state solution. israel on one side and palestine west bank on the other. the question was, is it still possible or if -- inconceivable -- or if it is just inconceivable by now.

>> and you think? >> i think history has passed it by. mainly because the israelis have sent so many settlers, so many jewish israeli settlers to the west bank. there are now close to 300,000 of them. removing the settlers, which has to be done -- >> is not politically viable in israel. >> not politically viable. and not militarily viable. the radical settlers are convinced that if the army was ever set into evacuate settlers first the government would fall in a day which i think is probably true. second, if the army went in, so many of the soldiers now are religious guys that the army would break apart. >> would it have been -- it is not a fair question, but nevertheless, suppose it was prime minister rabin or prime minister sharon a different answer? >> i was so sentimentally

attached to prime minister rabin, i think anything might have been possible with rabin. which is why he was killed. >> you used to live in tel aviv. of all your friends in israel where you live for how many years? >> more than 10. >> of all your friends, if you said to them, the building of the settlements in the west bank was a bad idea, not in your interest? >> they would say, of course then change the topic of conversation. >> i don't understand. >> in places like tel aviv, where just about everyone is for peace and against settlements, the irony is that when you go to a dinner party in tel aviv, everything is discussed except politics. family friends movies, theater, music -- everything. vacations in. but not the politics of the

situation. >> because they are tired of it or because they know there's no light at the end of the tunnel? >> because they are tired of it and they are in a state of denial. it is a very good life. like in tel aviv is a wonderful life, and they don't want to be bothered with these questions they don't really have answers. >> one month after 9/11, he joined me for a discussion of how that event changed the world. >> i get nervous when i hear the rhetoric out of washington about winning the war on terrorism about victory. i understand the need for rhetoric in times like this, but i think it raises false expectations. i do not know of anyone who has won the war against terrorism. the israelis, who are so much better equipped at this point to fight it then we are, who are perfectly prepared to use to coney and measures which we have not begun to imagine -- draconian measures which we have not yet begun to imagine it,

cannot make it stop. the british have been trying to get it out of northern ireland now since 1969. no way. the french, who systematically used torture to eliminate the liberation movement against french role in algeria in 1957, they won the battle of the jeers but -- algiers by torturing everyone. the fln had a cell structure similar to al qaeda. they won the battle of algiers. years later, the syrians rose again and the french left. >> what is an acceptable level? >> indeed. in israel now1 it's no acceptable -- in israel now, it is not acceptable. >> no one can walk into a restaurant without being fearful someone else will walk in. that is unacceptable.

>> but people do go to restaurants. the restaurants in tel aviv are packed. because after a while this , hasn't happened to us yet we're in a state of shock. but go to any city at war. tel aviv is in a sense at war. they get hit. sarajevo, life goes on. we are not used to it yet. there is a remote possibility this was a one off and not it -- now they will go away. >> very remote. >> but if they continue, i do not think we can even begin to imagine what we as a society and the administration will have to do or have to take on as measures to make it stop. we have never done stuff like that before. and we don't have any idea yet how it will transform us. the biggest danger is if it pushes us into fascism. >> he is survived by his wife and daughter, who was working with her father the night he

died. also her husband and their son, jack, bob simon' his grandson. -- bob simon's grandson. bob simon, dead at 73. ♪ >> adam silver is here, he is the commissioner of the nba. he has had a busy first year after taking over for david stern last february. he imposed a lifetime ban on former los angeles clippers owner donald sterling. his racist remarks were caught on a recording. in august, steve ballmer bought the clippers for a record $2 billion. this year, the average nba franchise is worth $1.1 billion. all-star festivities will return to new york this weekend on saturday. barclays center in brooklyn will host events including the dunk contest and three point shootout. on sunday, the all-star game will be played at madison square garden. i am pleased to have adam silver back.

welcome. >> thank you. >> you were last year when you were getting ready to take over. it is been one hell of a ride. >> it has. it has been a chock-full year. last i was here with david stern and we came on together. >> to remember this, you love the knicks -- >> growing up. i still love them, but i love all teams equally. >> you are a lawyer and then went to work for david. why did you make the transition from law to a job at the nba? >> i was practicing law in new york, a new york firm and i was doing largely antitrust and media cases. i became fascinated with the media business. hbo at the time was one of the largest clients. while i was working on media matters, i thought it would be interesting to go the other side of the table rather than

litigating, i wanted to be on the business side of media. i looked to make a transition out of law and david stern was somebody who my father had known. he had worked at the same law for my father had. i didn't know. so i wrote to david a letter, among a lot of people and said "hello. i want to make the transition from law into business." so just to be clear, i did not that out wanting to work in sports, necessarily. my track was more about media. david at the time, in the early 1990's he had done a deal with tnt, which was a fledgling network. and a lot of talk about how david was moving the nba to be a modern media business. so he was someone i wrote a letter to, among many people. he was one of the people who actually called me. >> that's one of the signal achievements under david's leadership, what you did with respecting that aspect of --

developing that aspect of the nba nba.com. >> well, we were the first league to form its own full-time network. we launched the nba.com tv show which became nba tv. we've always had a major cable presence. our teams and their cities with their regional sports networks have a major presence. i went into the nba as a huge fan. i grew up a knick fan, going to a lot of games. but my greatest interest was going into business. it happened to be i was fortunate enough to end up working at the nba. in my early years, focused entirely on the business side. it was only later that i started -- >> i guess there was a time when david made you a number two that you knew you were the logical choice of replacing him? a lot of learning experience. >> right. i ended up working directly for david.

i started as his assistant, special assistant to the commissioner. i had five jobs at the nba before becoming commissioner. the last was deputy commissioner. even when i became deputy commissioner, it was not so clear i would become commissioner. there was a guy who had been the deputy commissioner before me. i worked with him as well. by then, david gave me the opportunity over the years to demonstrate that iran something called nba entertainment, which was the media business. i ran the last collective bargaining negotiation. i got to know many of the owners, and other key constituents around the nba a lot better. our business partners, i started working directly with players association. >> on the upside, what is the challenge for the nba? international is clearly one. >> the upside is that we compete against an enormous number of

entertainment options. that's sort of the way i started. the key to keep the game interesting, competitive attractive. there are so many ways, just as your show is competing for people's attention. we are competing with roughly 1000 channels on cable and satellite. now it's virtually unlimited because of the internet. we know every day we have to earn our fans' respect and loyalty and willingness to spend their money. >> what you doing to make sure you maintain the loyalty? >> one thing we continue to be focused on is the game. that's one of the pivots i have made. being someone who ran the business side of the week. the mantra around the league is "the game above all." we know all these new platforms are fantastic. hd 4k, the ability to watch on smartphones and tablets. but at the end of the day, unless the game is compelling, fans are not watching.

right now, whether it is talking about the way we set our schedule, we have fans talking about back to back games, we want to make sure we create a schedule and make sure players are and our playoff format works so you end up with the best 16 teams. we want to make sure the way our games are produced are compelling. >> how to produce parity? >> a great question. people ask me all the time, what are you going to do about the knicks? in the case of the nba, exact number of wins to give out. when somebody say would you like the knicks to be better? each team has an equal ability

to compete for championships. not how will be the owner is based on the additional revenue the large markets may generate. historically, without a salary cap system, an owner is willing to lose incredible amounts of money in order to win because the owner is in a profitable fashion, a lot more to invest in the team. let's say it is new york, a much larger media markets. the knicks' local television deal generates more. what we did the last bargaining collection, true parity in a way. it is much the sport as the system. in the nba, a softer cap but in the last agreement, we crated a system where will go further toward competitive parity.

even -- i know you are a big basketball fan. if we took the 450 players basketball is interesting of team effort. individuals can be so dominant like lebron james. his team as likely to make the playoffs regardless of where he plays and kobe, michael, tim duncan. >> they generally need the one other player. >> that is where management comes in. if you have three superstars like the miami heat did, you need an important cast of characters. that's what made what buford did in san antonio so important. even if we dispersed of the

players, it would be hard to create that any given sunday notion in the nba. you want every team to have any chance of getting the players. if new york by virtue, they could outbid the other teams for stars. >> they would love it. >> not a perfect correlation but in baseball, no doubt that there's a correlation between payroll and success on the field. >> basketball is interesting because you have oklahoma. >> another great example, a very small market, they have kevin durant and got him through the draft and russell westbrook. and they ended up unfortunately having to trade james harden. ownership there did not feel they could go into the luxury tax because it would put them in

an unprofitable position. even in our cap system because of the soft cap, ownership in oklahoma city would say they are in a bit of a disadvantage. from the league office, when they moved james harden, fantastic player and maybe the m.v.p. this year. he is on the houston rockets. dwight howard who is injured. a superstar player. that creates more parity. oklahoma city's loss. >> and the idea of having the team with the worst record have a better draft choice, not necessarily the best. >> i understand. you are not using the dreaded t-word. we call it rebuilding.

[laughter] the lottery was instituted to disincentivize this. >> is steve ballmer the perfect owner for you? he loved his team. it seems like the kind of guy. he does not need as an ego. he needs it because he loves it. >> i will say yes, he is the perfect owner. somebody we have been talking to for a long time. moved from seattle, explored buying a team. at that point in his life as a ceo of microsoft, knowing he cannot invest the appropriate

amount of time. hhe was part of that group seeking to acquire the team. my meeting when he stepped down from microsoft, neither one of us thought of the clippers would be offered for sale a few months later. we met. what teams are potentially for sale and steve sat there with a map of seattle and took an old-school compass and said i am willing to go about three hours on my plane and not any further. he explored other teams and called other owners. and when it became clear that the sterlings would sell the clippers, we spoke. he engaged with shelly sterling and bought to be team. he is a perfect owner. >> does what he paid for the

clippers set a new standard as to what the value of franchises are? >> you began to show about talking about [indiscernible] i think it did. i think the combination. ultimately, the market, buyers and sellers. i think he understood the value of media. somebody like how i got into the sports business, the media technology sector and steve ballmer with the great wealth and microsoft and when he came in, we had a lot of discussions. he had been helpful to me and we had renewed our u.s. television deals and he understands the media business. he understood the live sports content and fragmented media opportunities. something that almost always consumes lives. he realized the values would only increase.

ultimately, he bid against others, he understood the intrinsic value. and he had -- one of those things where he recognized especially when it comes to an l.a. franchise, once in a generation opportunity like l.a. or new york. >> a great team. >> a great team with the doc rivers and chris paul. the opportunity came where he was at the moment in his life where he had the resources. the point of him being an owner. he has invested in those. he still has principal residency in seattle and he is basically at every home game and involved in the management of the scene. he is a great resource to me as part of our board. >> the donald sterling case. >> effective immediately, i am banning mr. sterling for life from any association with the

clippers organization or the nba. >> how did you see what you had to do? what were the principles guiding you in making hard decisions? >> one, i begin with the fact i had been with the league so long that in those principles were intrinsic to me and the league office that in terms of fairness in terms of a level playing field for all players, all people, nondiscriminatory environment. those were the core principles that had been has down to me not only by david, but bill russell is still part, oscar robertson is still part, kareem abdul-jabbar. our babe ruths are still around. >> magic, michael, you can go on and on. >> those were the fundamentals at work and from a process

standpoint, it all happened over such a fast few days for me that the audiotape of donald sterling's conversation came out very late on a friday night. >> how did you get to hear it? >> like everyone, i woke up on a saturday morning and had a bunch of e-mails saying, have you heard this? i listened to with, somewhat in shock, i've known donald sterling for over two decades. it sounds like him, not positive it is him. have not talked to him or his representatives yet. and then, where social media has truly changed the world, internet has disrupted every industry, roughly 10 million people heard the recorded in the first 24 hours. tmz quickly got an e-mail to everyone around the internet.

we did our investigation and the next two days and interment it was him. he acknowledged it was him. at first there was a question if he had been doctored or altered. i knew what was necessary in terms of protecting the link and the values we stood for. >> the decision? >> to ban mr. sterling from the league for life. under the circumstances, that was necessary. i will say it's not a decision i took lightly even though it happened quickly. again, for me, especially because i have known him for a long time and i am always mindful, i am aware of my training. the fact it began as a private conversation, would i want to be held to that standard the fact that people often make mistakes in life? i thought this was not a mistake.

it was -- my decision based -- i didn't base my decision on past conduct of his. >> and this was enough? >> this was enough. his reaction to it. >> how did you define, if i do not do this, i will lose credibility? i have to be the voice of the league at this moment. i am not in charge of the credibility of the league. >> it was less about me. less of how i look as commissioner. i felt it was my obligation to protect an institution that had existed long before me and hopefully, long after me. michael jordan, i talked to a lot of owners and michael is the owner of the charlotte hornets.

michael jordan, of all people, i didn't ask any of the owners necessarily what i should do. i do not think i presented the range of options the wanted to get from them their reactions. michael jordan said to me, he said, "the league is bigger to any one individual." very much the case. i was not thinking i am not going to look strong. i was thinking i've got to protect the institution. the real issue of the players potentially boycotting our games. not threats and just coming but pressures placed from outside groups including the clippers before i made my decision. i happen to be on a trip to san francisco the day after this happened. i was at their game. this tape came out on a saturday.

before we knew the facts, i spoke to doc rivers, i spoke to chris paul and they were pressured to boycott their own game. they said, how unfair it is to us. they needed the ability to say a properly so, we need to focus on the game. and so, if i had not taken strong action, it could've been potential boycotts. and then the partners of the league. whether the disney company which owns it -- abc, or tnt or various sponsors, they were being threatened as well. they were calling me and not just because of pressure but they were putting pressure on me and asking, what kind of league isn't this? all of this had a huge impact. >> you have watched i am sure with a learning i what -- eye what happened with the nfl with domestic violence.

what does it mean for your league? >> an incredibly serious issue for all leagues. i am ultimately responsible. look, i learn from what people go through. i learned more from a process standpoint that even in the nba, we used to sit back and wait for the criminal justice system to run its course. for example, when kobe bryant was -- ultimately, the case was dismissed. he never went to trial. it was dismissed. but that was roughly 10 years ago. even though he had been indicted of a felony, david's reaction the standard was innocent on his whole proven guilty and kobe was an active player. he went to games after he came

from hearings. the standard has changed. we would have a player accused of a crime certainly indicted up a crime, my sense is now the league would need to conduct is on investigation which is not a comfortable place to be. as someone's to practice law, i want to be protective of the due process. rights of the accused, whether a player, executive, owner, anyone involved in our league. the wife of a player. the issue here is that often any criminal defense lawyer, when his or her client is facing potential incarceration, will tell the client you can now waive your fifth amendment right by speaking to the league office. by what standard could we potentially suspend an officer -- player only accused of a crime? take a hypothetical where there

is a player accused of a crime and let's say a case where there are witnesses, but no video evidence. and the league is in a position of a credibility determination. let's say a player says, not true. a case where there is video. if there were to be video like in the ray rice case, we just say -- on the other hand, what if the player what to say -- were to say, that is not what happened, somebody altered the video or misleading camera angle. those are all areas that modern leagues now have to deal with. >> what is the status of your labor negotiations and contract? obviously, we read how you are making more and more money from the television contracts. if i were a player, i would want to say i hope i am participating.

>> my answer would be is a revenue-sharing system. the salary cap were talking about before is determined essentially by taking 50% or 51% of revenue, a sliding formula and divide into by 30. a lot of nuance. not profit but gross dollar, players get roughly 50% of that dollar. when we get a new tv deal and revenue goes up, players get their share of it. where our status of collective bargaining is, we're in the midst of a 10-year deal. both sides have the opportunity to opt out after six years. we're in the fourth year. presumably, the union and the league will examine where we are at the appropriate time and decide whether it is worth going

back to the negotiation table. the current agreement, which was hard fought by both sides, seems to be operating as it was intended. >> we are in the midst of the all-star game. what does all-star weekend become? >> it has become a sort of basketball spectacular. it is not -- an entertainment event. i hear the criticism from people will say, all-star saturday events are not real basketball and you are glorifying dunking. i hear that the game itself, players are not playing defense. i would say for us, it is an opportunity to celebrate the game. for new yorkers, the next several days going into the weekend, you can feel the buzz in town. we are expecting about 200,000 people to come to town.

you can come and experience the game and memorabilia. we have 150 legends coming to town. bill russell, oscar, dr. j, will all be here. for us, the epicenter of the basketball world. >> a celebration and the love of the game. drug testing and what steroids have done in baseball. is it an issue for you? >> i hope not. we test and we have an agreement with our players association where we test for steroids. we test for other performance enhancing drugs. something we are constantly discussing. there is not a sense that it has

historically been an issue in our game. i do not want to be naive. the psychology of it is as such there is not a sense that players greatly benefit from doing it. but at the same time, we want to have a strong system so no player ever feels they are losing out somehow and that other players have an edge because they are doing something. that's what you want to be careful of and protect the players. there is never a sense if i am not doing something, i am at a disadvantage. we have strong tests. >> is basketball popular enough internationally today for there to be an asian league in european league? >> the answer is, is it popular enough, but i do not think the economics are there to do that. at least run by the nba. for example, china is our second-biggest market outside of the u.s.

number two market. it is the number one sport in china. they have a domestic league, the chinese basketball association. yao ming, owns the shanghai market. that league is in the process of growing and developing and the nba assists and helps with programs in china. i do not conceivably see a way in which we cooperate nba franchises in asia. europe is something david stern talked about for years and would consider that potentially, we could see a division in europe. we are not fighting there yet. if were to do it, we would do well multiple franchises. >> it is a pleasure to have you here. >> thank you very much. ♪

>> welcome to bloomberg's davos debate. i am francine lacqua. over the next hour, we focus on cheap money and of course the tough questions that go along with it. can the fed raise interest rates?