Stern fast-tracked to his just reward

Former NBA boss gets early entry into Basketball Hall of Fame

David Stern remembers the days when an NBA staff that numbered about two dozen was just trying to keep some teams in existence long enough to get them on national TV.

Now the former commissioner looks at a league whose 1980 championship series was not broadcast live but now has games televised around the world, whose players average more than $5 million a year in salary as the highest-paid team athletes in sports, and sometimes can't believe what he and his colleagues pulled it off.