NBA commissioner Adam Silver hasn’t been shy about challenging convention and implementing changes to the league since taking over from his predecessor in 2014.
Two months into his tenure, he was swift to ban former Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling over racists comments. Later that year, Silver wrote a column in the New York Times in favour of legalized sports betting. In the years since he’s pulled the all-star game from Charlotte in response to North Carolina’s anti-LGBTQ laws, made changes to the NBA schedule by shortening the pre-season and moving the trade deadline, and has fought for a new draft lottery system that will be in effect in time for 2019.
And, if his appearance on Sportsnet 590 The Fan’s Prime Time Sports on Thursday night is any indication, he’s hardly done putting his mark on the present and future of one of the world’s most popular and thriving sports leagues.
Here are some of the most interesting topics Silver tackled:
“We’re doing as good a job as any business in terms of reaching millennials.”
It’s a good time to be an NBA fan—and commissioner. The league is a legitimate powerhouse on a global scale, embracing and implementing new technologies and attracting key demographics in the process.
Silver mentioned the NBA has a social media community of more than 1.3 billion.
“Our sport, among the major sports, has one of the younger demographics, in part because it’s a fast-paced sport, and a global sport,” he said.
This season alone Silver has had a hand in reducing the number of timeouts in a game and placed restrictions on commercial breaks during NBA broadcasts in order to retain viewers’ attention—something a sport like baseball is seriously struggling with.
And you can only expect those numbers to grow as the NBA continues to pace the four North American leagues by experimenting with viewing experiences that incorporate virtual and augmented reality, and embracing highlights on YouTube and other social media platforms.
“The issue became whether we should have a draft.”
With draft reform a popular topic of late, Silver acknowledged that the league had asked that question of itself numerous times over the past few years, evaluating the fundamental purpose of an amateur draft in order to determine whether or not it should exist in the first place.
“At the end of the day the conflict is that the purpose of the draft, presumably, is to re-stock the worst teams so they are in a position to become competitive again,” he said. “But if teams are gaming the system and becoming artificially bad in order to get the best picks—and in this sport more than any other one player can have such a significant impact on your fortunes—then it may be worth it to be that bad. Maybe the draft has outlived its usefulness.”
He clarified that it’s not a position he currently endorses, but is something the NBA is constantly discussing in order to ensure a fair balance of power and reduce teams tanking at the end of the season. The league has already made changes to the lottery that will be in effect the season after next, evening the odds for the three worst teams to land the No. 1 pick.
“What we’re trying to do is reduce the incentive to be bad, in essence,” he said.
“The one and done system isn’t working well for the NBA—or colleges.”
When David Stern was still commissioner, he raised the minimum age to be draft-eligible from 18 to 19. Silver mentioned that he had changed his position on this over the years as he previously favoured raising the limit again to 20, essentially ensuring college prospects remain in the NCAA for two years.
Now, however, Silver is openly questioning the whole system of drafting players out of college.
“We’re now seeing these players, the so-called ‘one-and-done’ class in college, because the value in the marketplace to them as NBA players is so great—for a top prospect to come in and have a 10-year career and potentially sign a max deal is a future value of hundreds of millions of dollars—that these players are now in essence in a resting mode during that one year in college.”
There are exceptions, he said, “but many of those players are just waiting to come into the NBA.”
“My ultimate concern is about developing the best possible players to come into our league. If the goal is to become the best players in the world when they’re 25, at 18 or 19 is the best possible training to be in these college programs?
“The question becomes: should we be bringing them into a professional system earlier?”
There have been rumblings around the league about using the G League to house prospects, and it’s something Silver has considered.
“Those players, rather than going into D-1 college ball, become professionals at 18 and play in our developmental league. Those are things we’ll continue to look at.”
He mentioned that the NBA isn’t in a collective bargaining cycle, so changes won’t come any time soon, but it will remain a leading discussion down the line.
There are plenty of cities contacting the NBA office asking to be on the list for expansion—but they shouldn’t hold their breath
The NBA is wildly successful. It’s no wonder many cities would want to have a franchise in their backyard, but there are other obstacles and pressing issues that need to be addressed or considered before the league talks expansion.
“Unlike soccer, we have one league that contains the 450 very best players in the entire world,” Silver said, to highlight the irony that, unlike, say, the NFL, the NBA still struggles to find parity. Despite having the best players there are still powerhouses like the Golden State Warriors who are able to remain at the top of the heap for years.
“Putting aside the financial impact [of expansion], it dilutes talent further,” Silver said, “We’ll turn to expansion at some point, [but] it’s not at the top of our agenda.”
Silver also mentioned that the league and its owners are always evaluating current NBA cities in terms of their viability to house a team, so the door could be open to relocation as opposed to expansion. But that, too, isn’t a pressing issue in Silver’s mind.
“We’re comfortable with a 30-team league.”
Sorry Vancouver fans.
[relatedlinks]
