Mining Silver’s playbook
Commish touches on number of hoop topics
LAS VEGAS — Memo to all the people not living in the Bay Area who threw up their arms in frustration when DeMarcus Cousins agreed to sign with the Warriors: Adam Silver feels your pain.
The NBA commissioner said after last night’s Board of Governors meeting that, while he has no problem with the Warriors doing everything they can to improve under the current rules, he’d like to see some curbs on the rich getting richer.
And by “the rich,” he means not only teams that have collections of good players, but more the franchises in larger markets, where better revenue streams (local radio and TV deals, etc.) make those clubs more able to digest the luxury tax payments designed to deter them from hoarding high-salaried talent.
It might be a while before the league and Players Association can get together on this, but if significant changes are, indeed, in the offing, the Celtics could feel the effects as they try to keep together a team with three max-worth players (Kyrie Irving, Gordon Hayward, Al Horford) and deal with the post-rookie contracts of Jaylen Brown, Terry Rozier and Jayson Tatum in coming years.
The Celts are already likely to step into luxury tax territory if they can sign restricted free agent Marcus Smart to a multiple-year deal. (They could stay beneath the mark if Smart decides to just accept the qualifying offer of $6,053,719 and become an unrestricted free agent next summer.)
And staying beneath the tax threshold can be a significant benefit in that it helps to avoid the repeater tax, which hits teams at a higher rate if they’ve been in the tax three of the previous four seasons. If the Celts are able to keep this group intact and pay the individuals at market rate, they’ll be writing some large checks to the league in the future.
Despite the fact the NBA does very well interest-wise when there are dominant teams, Silver has clearly heard the complaints that the Warriors have the 2019 championship under lock and key and is looking to foster hope in more cities.
Two years ago here, he addressed Golden State and Cleveland being prohibitive favorites again to meet in the 2017 Finals (they did), saying, “I’ve read several stories suggesting that that’s something that the league wants, this notion of two superteams, that it’s a huge television attraction. I don’t think it’s good for the league, just to be really clear.”
While the Celtics are the preseason favorite to represent the Eastern Conference in the Finals, they are nowhere near as expected to be there as is Golden State.
“I’m not here to say we have a problem — and I love where the league is right now — but I think we can create a better system. We learn from each successive (collective bargaining) deal. We try new things. We make predictions about how caps and exceptions will work. We have great economists who come in on our side of the table; the union does, as well. But it’s not a perfect science in trying to predict the behavior of our teams, and things change in the marketplace.
“So I don’t necessarily think it’s per se bad that the Warriors are so dominant. As I’ve said before, we’re not trying to create some sort of forced parity. What we really focus on is parity of opportunity, and a fair point could be made in a tax system when certain teams are spending significantly more than others, that that’s not parity of opportunity. And also certain teams have advantages that other teams don’t, that based on the resources of their market, the wealth of the market, they may be in a position to go deeper into the tax than another team does.
“So dynasties are nothing new in this league,” Silver added. “There is a long history of it. I also think it’s hard to make comparisons to other sports because in the NBA where superstar players are on the floor roughly 80 percent of the time, obviously play offense and defense, there are only four other teammates on the floor, they can be that much more dominant than even a great quarterback that is only on the field half the time and has many more teammates — or a great NHL player who is on the ice roughly 30 percent of the time.”
Silver noted there are “unique issues,” and as he said during this past Finals and reiterated last night, LeBron James “had 59 different teammates over eight years. So we recognize that great players, superstar players, are going to have a unique ability to impact games. But having said that, there are changes we could make to the system that I think will create more competitive balance and more equality of opportunity, and those are things we look at.”
As regards the lowering of the age requirement, Silver said, “My personal view is that we’re ready to make that change. That it won’t come immediately. When I’ve weighed the pros and cons, given that Condoleezza Rice and her commission has recommended to the NBA that those one-and-done players now come directly into the league, and in essence the college community is saying we do not want those players anymore, that sort of tips the scale in my mind that we should be taking a serious look at lowering our age to 18.”
The commissioner has also taken advantage of his visit to Vegas to do some work with gaming corporations in the wake of all states being allowed to legalize sports betting if they so choose. The league has been seeking a 1 percent “integrity fee” on all NBA bets, but Silver is taking a more direct approach here.
“In addition to working with the state legislatures, we’re also talking directly to the gaming establishments about entering into commercial deals,” Silver said.
“My view is we should be compensated for our intellectual property, but we can do that directly, again, with commercial relationships with gaming establishments. Even while I’ve been in town the last few days, I’ve had some discussions with some of the operators here about that.”