The NFL has faced intense scrutiny recently over testing for Human Growth Hormone. Two seasons after it was agreed upon by the NFL and the Players Association in the latest collective bargaining agreement, it still hasn’t begun such testing.

Major League Baseball plans to implement such testing this season. Two congressmen asked NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith for all correspondence in regards to the subject with the NFL. And Commissioner Roger Goodell said he hoped to have it in place by next season despite delays by Smith and the NFLPA.

Now Commissioner David Stern said the NBA hopes to begin HGH testing next season, according to SI.com.

“We watch what’s going on in baseball, we watch the negotiations that are going in with football, and it is my expectation that by next season (we) will be doing blood testing for HGH,” Stern told WCCO radio in Minnesota. “Our players have been terrific. They lead this in some ways, saying, ‘We do not want to have anything less than the best.’That’s been the way it?s been since 1983.”

Stern said a proper protocol was needed before it could phased in, despite the fact it has been approved since December 2011.

“If I say I don?t have a concern, everyone says I’m a Pollyanna,” Stern said. “I don?t have any reason to know one way or another. My guess is and my hope is that it’s not widely used in the NBA.”

– Bill Bradley, contributing editor