Stern looked at the basketball court and saw the world’s greatest athletes, a unique, supersize group of players who could fly through the air on their way to twisting dunks and toss a large ball through a small hoop from 30 feet away. His league had rare talents like Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, and, beginning in 1984, a guard out of North Carolina named Michael Jordan. Stern, who believed the N.B.A. had failed to leverage the talents and popularity of its past stars, decided that all N.B.A. greats, past and present, would be his tickets to success.

Instead of trying to snuff out the rising power of players — an approach that had cost baseball and football hundreds of millions of dollars and huge chunks of seasons — Stern figured out how to embrace the change and capitalize on it.

Television promotions featured N.B.A. players and their on-court acrobatics. After deciding the league should have a licensing and sponsorship division, which it somehow lacked before he came aboard, Stern hired a young executive named Rick Welts, who is now the president of the Golden State Warriors. They made a dream list of partners — McDonald’s, Coke and others — and then traveled the country telling the story of what the N.B.A. could be.