Silver likes successes but not drama
Commissioner isn’t happy about off-court issues like trade demands
LAS VEGAS — NBA commissioner Adam Silver reveled for a few minutes in the successes, but the conversation around the league had changed.
He was uncomfortable and even unhappy enough with the continuing trend of players under contract — most recently Nets superstar Kevin Durant — seeking or forcing trades that he thought it could come up in the next collective bargaining sessions.
The NBA was in many ways on a roll. Revenue far exceeded preseason projections or his expectations. Every playoff game was sold out. The Finals were a hit. Even the Las Vegas Summer League, which has become a leaguewide gathering that included the Board of Governors meeting and Silver’s post-meeting comments, had grown so large that he said it generated an estimated $125 million in economic impact, filling 70,000 hotel rooms and selling $135 tickets.
Yet, just as Durant’s desire to leave the Nets had dominated so many conversations around summer leagues and its related meetings, it occupied many of Silver’s comments.
“I don’t know whether the player requested a trade or demanded one,” Silver said. “But this needs to be a two-way street. Teams provide security and guarantees to the players, and the expectation is in return that they’ll meet their end of the bargain. I’m realistic that there’s always going to be conversations that go on behind closed doors between players and representatives of the teams. But we don’t like to see players requesting trades and we don’t like to see it playing out the way it is.
“Ideally … the basketball was fantastic this past season, the playoffs, we had a wonderful Finals. I don’t want to be naive, but I would like, I would love the focus to be on the play on the floor.”
Silver pointed out that he had not heard anything about Durant refusing to play, so the “two-way street” could be met even while he desires to be traded since teams do have the right to trade players under contract. Still, he described the situation as in need of a “remedy.”
“As to what we can do about this issue, when a player asks to be moved, it has a ripple effect on a lot of other players, that player’s team and other teams,” Silver said. “It is not potentially just the league or the team governors who are impacted by that but lots of other players as well.
“It is one of these issues as we move into this collective bargaining cycle, which we are just beginning now, we intend to discuss with our players association to see if there are other remedies for this. It will never be the case that players will not be unhappy in certain situations. We don’t want to see it playing out the way it is now. I think it is something there is mutuality of interest between the players collectively and the league in having more stability.”
Silver said star movement in free agency does not concern him and can create “a sense of renewal in certain markets.” He said the Durant situation was not specifically discussed by the Board of Governors.
“I don’t know what is going on between him and his team,” Silver said. “Certainly, there is a lot of buzz going on in this town about possible moves.
“I think it takes both us and the players association
sitting down and acknowledging the principles that are at stake here and that is the sanctity of contracts and the desire for stability. And I am hopeful – we have a very productive relationship with our players association – that were not going to completely eliminate players asking to be moved but that we can find a way to move the attention back onto the court.”
Silver addressed a variety of other issues.
• On the question of players sitting out games when healthy, he said the league could consider adding incentives to contracts based on games played and results. He said it is a business issue for the league and players because fans pay the same amount when star players play and when they don’t.
“It will be something we discuss as we sit down with players and talk about the collective bargaining agreement,” Silver said. “It is something we both should be relying on the best science. I accept, No. 1, times have changed. In the old days … players played through certain injuries we wouldn’t want players to play through. Having said that, there’s a lot of mystery around load management.
Silver said he is not looking to shorten the season but said “it’s a conversation we should all have, in terms of what’s the optimal number of games on players’ bodies.”
“Maybe there’s additional incentives we can come up with, as well. I’m all in favor of guaranteed contracts. But maybe that on top of your typical guaranteed contract, some incremental money should be based on number of games played and results of those games. I mean, that’s how most industries work, where there’s financial incentives even among highly paid executives for performance.”
• On the league’s efforts to help free WNBA star and Houston native Brittany Griner from Russian detention, he said he could not speak to the notion that a better-known athlete might have been freed more quickly, as some have suggested.
“I will say from the NBA standpoint, we, working with our sister league, the WNBA, are doing everything in our power to bring her home,” Silver said. “From early days, extensive discussions with the administration, the State Department, her family, representatives, it was suggested to us early on we should not be drawing more attention to her because the likely demand would increase in terms of a trade to potentially get her out of the country.
“I know her wife was quoted the other day with saying she was satisfied with everything the Biden administration was doing to right now. I’ve accepted the administration is doing everything they can recognizing there are some seriously complex geopolitical issues here. We’re just trying to do everything we can to get her back.
“We as a league have been using whatever connections we have to bring as much attention as possible to her situation. My dealings with Brittany’s representatives, none of them were suggesting to me the league, either the NBA or WNBA, isn’t doing everything we can think of to try to assist the situation. Sometimes, there’s only so much you can do.”
• On changes to the eligibility requirements for players to be eligible for the draft, Silver said his own position has changed from believing the requirement should be raised to players being at least 20 years old to now believing the rule should move to allowing players to be draft eligible at 18 years old.
He said his opinion changed because of societal changes, including NIL rules, and that players are also “conflicted” on the issue. Silver said he expects it to come up in collective bargaining negotiations and hoped it would change.
“It’s not my unilateral ability to do that,” Silver said. “It can only happen through collective bargaining.”