San Francisco – Commissioner Adam Silver addressed the media before opening the floor to questions.
Welcome, everybody. Appreciate members of the media for making the trip here to the Bay Area. Many of you are from far away, so it’s nice to see you. Kind of you to be here.
First, a few other thank yous from me to Joe Lacob and Peter Guber and the Warriors’ organization. They’ve done an outstanding job planning for these events. As you all know, it’s essentially a week’s worth of events in the community, both here in San Francisco and Oakland. I’ve attended many of them over the last several days, including community activities, clinics, fan fests, and everything you could imagine under the sun related to basketball.
And for our NBA community, as you all know, because we don’t have neutral-site Finals, it’s a time that people can mark on their calendars in a coming together of our community. From that standpoint, it’s always very meaningful to us to see a lot of old friends, partners of the league, and an opportunity, too, along with other leagues. WNBA is well represented here, and the G League is, too. I came from a luncheon today celebrating the Basketball Africa League, and even our 2K League is represented here. So, it truly is an epicenter of the basketball community.
I also want to thank Mayor Daniel Lurie here in San Francisco, the new mayor. I’ve had the opportunity to be with him at several different events over the last few days. There really is a sense of optimism in this community right now. Frankly, I felt it all the way in New York before I got here. I think the national media is covering the Renaissance we’re seeing here in San Francisco. I’ve had the opportunity since I’ve been commissioner to be here quite a lot, given the number of Finals the Warriors have participated in. I’ve always enjoyed coming to this community, but I do sense more energy these last several days here than I’ve experienced in a long time. I think it’s just a true sense of optimism here that the city is turning the corner and that under Daniel’s leadership, things are heading in the right direction.
I do also, though, want to thank London Breed, the previous mayor. She was instrumental in bringing the All-Star Game here. I haven’t had a chance to see her since I’ve been here yet, but I know she’s in town. So I do very much appreciate her and want to thank her. Without her, these festivities would not be happening here right now.
With that, we’ve already had several events, as you all know. I’ve had an opportunity to attend them, from the Rising Stars to the Celebrity Game, many different competitions around the city, and everything has gone really well so far. So I’m looking forward to tonight and then the All-Star competition tomorrow night.
With that, I’m happy to answer any questions.
The Commissioner comments on the shocking trade that rocked the NBA, involving the Dallas Mavericks and Los Angeles Lakers.
There’s been some discourse this year about the state of the game, some of it unflattering, including from some high-profile members of your media partners, and you throughout some of your availabilities have talked about some tweaks, looking at the amount of three-pointers, which suggests that maybe that is a problem. But I did want to ask you what you feel is the state of the game today.
ADAM SILVER: I think the state of the game is excellent. I think it’s the media’s role, the fans’ role; it’s perfectly appropriate to be critical of the game, and I find it very helpful. I’m not one of those people who said I don’t read criticism. I try to read it all frankly, and we try to absorb it at the league office. Many great ideas have come from outside this league. Even some of the things that we’ve done recently over the last several years. Things like a Play-In Tournament, things like the In-Season Tournament, which became known as the NBA Cup. I can’t claim those were original ideas. Those were things, whether we saw other leagues doing that the media talking about them. So we’ve made plenty of tweaks over the years.
In terms of three-point shooting, it was interesting. Just yesterday, I was listening to Steve Kerr, interviewed by Bob Costas. I actually was eagerly awaiting his response on the state of three-point shooting in this league. He was one of the all-time great three-point shooters when he played, and I would say, if anything, the three-point revolution of sorts was led by the Golden State Warriors and Steph Curry.
His reaction was, do I think there’s too much three-point shooting? Possibly, yes. Do I think the state of the game is great? Also yes. Is there a fix that comes to mind that would improve the game and potentially reduce the amount of three-point shooting? There wasn’t one that he had to suggest.
As you know, we have a Competition Committee. It’s something we talk about all the time. And if there’s a way to improve the game, believe me, we’ll be all over it.
I’ve also learned, having been around this game for a long time, not to overreact. I think here that- I do think it’s a beautiful game. I think about 25 years ago was the last time we were in the Bay Area for an All-Star Game. The state of the game then, when many people were saying it was too physical, we were too dependent on the dunk, that players weren’t sufficiently skilled as they were saying then in the old days.
The fact now that you can’t play in this league unless you can shoot, that even seven-footers have to be able to shoot these days and have to be able to shoot at long range, I actually think that’s a beautiful thing.
One of the things we pay a lot of attention to at the league and through the Competition Committee is where to the extent we have more three-point shooting, where are those shots coming from. They are not coming from under the basket. Roughly 50 percent of the points are still scored in that area. So what you’re seeing is a conversion from two-pointers to three-pointers, and often those longer shots, as I said, do take more skill.
One thing I’ll add, too, in terms of young people playing the game, I think it’s a two-edged sword because sort of Steve Kerr jokingly was saying, if he goes to a youth basketball game and young kids are — these days, boys and girls are throwing up long-range shots, throwing airballs and stuff and sort of pointing at the Warriors and saying, your fault.
On the other hand, it’s a very egalitarian shot. You could say that to the extent the game is played primarily under the basket, it gives primacy to size. Where that notion if you’re a great shooter, you can succeed with differing body types if you can consistently make those shots.
A long way of saying we’re paying a lot of attention to it. I’m never going to say there isn’t room for improvement. We’ll continue to look at it and study it, but I am happy with the state of the game right now.
What is the future of the HBCU Classic going forward? Also, I know you had an emotional reveal today about Dikembe’s court. Can you sum up what he meant to you, the league, and David Stern?
ADAM SILVER: Yeah, sure. I’ll begin first with the HBCU Classic. We’re incredibly proud of the HBCU Classic. We’ve been doing that for a number of years now. It’s different schools coming in every year, just highlighting what’s happening in basketball at HBCUs. Again, we’re excited about that. We love our relationship with the HBCUs. So we’re pleased about how that’s going.
In terms of Dikembe Mutombo, we announced at the Africa luncheon today that we’re creating a new award: the Dikembe Mutombo Humanitarian Award. He was close to so many of us at the league office. You mentioned David Stern, David was the one who first named Dikembe our global ambassador.
I think Dikembe, it was something where David was only following what was already obvious. Dikembe, we were all calling him Ambassador Mutombo before he had the official moniker because it wasn’t just in Africa. As you know, because you travel so much with us all around the world, he was an ambassador of the game, and he devoted so much of his life to humanitarian efforts. He famously built a hospital in the Congo, and that was very public. But I’m looking at Kathy Behrens, who worked directly with him. There was so much he did that was completely out of the bright lights that nobody had any idea.
He was a constant fundraiser. I used to sort of joke when we traveled with him, he had his card as the NBA ambassador- these days when I take out my business card, young people say, what is that piece of paper? But when people still had business cards, he would start with his NBA ambassador card, and then he’d wait until I walked away, and out would come four other cards of all these other programs that he would be raising money for. He was so committed to it.
His spirit was infectious. I think part of it is just being a seven-footer. We all knew when we traveled with him, whether it was to Mumbai, a place where people might not know much about basketball or Dikembe Mutombo, I think because of his size, because of his laugh, just because of his presence, they instantly would know he was somebody important and he’d create those connections, something we all talk about so much these days.
I know David loved him. I loved him. We miss him tremendously. We think a lot about his wife, Rose, and his children. This award was the least we can do.
You mentioned the courts, as well, and of course Dikembe was No. 55. So we’ve already, working with our partners in Africa, built many courts, but we announced we were going to do an additional 55 courts with special branding on them associated directly with Dikembe Mutombo.
So thank you for that question.
In contrast to the Luka Doncic trade, there was the Jimmy Butler long, drawn out —
ADAM SILVER: I thought that was “the trade.”
Q. Secondary trade. It was long, drawn out, suspensions, mudslinging on both sides. All of these trades seem to have the constant theme of longer money, second aprons. Are you concerned that the new CBA is going to create more contentious player-franchise standoffs like we’ve had?
ADAM SILVER: No, I’m not concerned that that will be the result of the new CBA. I actually think that what the CBA was designed to do, honestly, is to force teams to make difficult decisions. I think teams are still finding their way a bit through this new second apron and what it means. But for us, it’s no secret that part of the design of that CBA and pushing down high-end spending was to create more parity in the league and to do a better job distributing our best players around the 30 teams. I think you’re seeing that to a certain extent already.
I’ll note, and I think new CBAs are always difficult to predict. I think it was only a few months ago when the conventional wisdom around the league seemed to be that we sort of spoiled the excitement around the trade deadline. That the day and age of these great trades at the deadline weren’t going to happen anymore. I think we just saw more players moved before the trade deadline than anytime in the history of the league.
Look, I think there’s two sides to every trade, and for the best aspect of trades is that it potentially creates a sense of renewal in some markets, a sense of excitement in others. There, of course, is a downside from a player standpoint. Putting aside a contentious situation, park that for a second, I know because I talk directly to players, as do you, it’s incredibly disruptive in a player’s life to get traded. Many players are of the age where they have young children and kids potentially get dislocated mid-year from school. I think it’s part of the grand bargain of playing in the NBA, in return for guaranteed contracts and strong union representation and a lot of money, honestly. It’s all in the back and forth, sort of, that is part of playing professional sports. Certainly that’s not unique to the NBA.
So I don’t think it’s bad. We always, looking at our CBAs, it’s like I talked about before with the game, will there be opportunities to improve it? Presumably yes, and I feel like through successive collective bargaining agreements, we’ve always found ways to tweak things and make things a little better in certain cases.
I look now most importantly at the level of parity we have in the league. Of course six different champions over the last six years. But just look at the season so far, where you have Oklahoma City and Cleveland with top records going into All-Star. I mean, that’s without anybody — the great news is, I don’t hear many people saying, oh, and by the way, they’re smaller markets. The goal is that that no longer becomes part of the discussion, that you have a 30-team league and teams are judged based on quality of management, desirability for players. Luck will play into that, as it always does, but that’s what we’re trying to create here at the league office.
Now that Alex Rodriguez and Marc Lore have won their arbitration case earlier this week, do you expect the Board of Governors to ratify them as the new owners of the Wolves?
ADAM SILVER: My expectation is that we will move forward, but first, Glen Taylor does have a decision to make as to whether to appeal that arbitration decision. I mean, that’s Glen’s decision to make. I haven’t talked to him directly about that.
I think, though, that A-Rod, certainly Marc Lore, is well known to the league at this point. They’ve already been vetted and approved as minority owners. I think they understood that the league had no role in this arbitration. That was something they had agreed to as part of their purchase agreement. I think now that the arbitration has been resolved, they will- as I said, Glen Taylor has a decision to make. If he chooses to appeal it, obviously we will wait until there’s finality as to that process, and if he doesn’t, we will move forward right away and continue the remaining part of our vetting process and then it will go to the governors for a vote.
If he doesn’t appeal, would you expect them to be ratified after this vote?
ADAM SILVER: The only reason I’m not going to answer that is that I don’t want to turn the Board of Governors role into a rubber stamp. That is a decision they need to make. We should conclude the vetting process. I know Marc and Alex understand that. That’s a process that every governor in this league has gone through. I will say that standing here today, I don’t see any reason why it won’t be approved, but again, we need to follow the process.
A bunch of your All-Stars today were asked if they had your job as NBA Commissioner, what they would do, and given any topic in the entire league being open to them, the topic that most of the guys hit on was officiating, and Steph Curry, Anthony Edwards, Damian Lillard, Cade Cunningham, a handful of other guys talked about different aspects of that. Steph Curry was talking about transparency. I know you already do the last two-minute report, but he would like to see the official grades and the way that system works for each official. Ant Edwards was talking about techs and how he’d like the standard for that to change.
I guess what I wanted to know from you is, how much do you want or need to be responsive when some of your top players are talking about this kind of thing? And again, given any topic out there, this is what they kept talking about today.
ADAM SILVER: I remember David Stern used to say when he was asked about officiating when he was Commissioner, he said a hundred years from now, whatever changes, somebody is going to be standing here and someone is going to be standing here and they are going to ask them about officiating and be unhappy with it, so that issue obviously isn’t going to go away.
I just will say that we welcome direct feedback from all players in the league, whether they’re top players or not, and it is an ongoing discussion, and we’re always looking to improve officiating.
NBA players are members of our competition committee, so we talk directly about it there, and we have our own conversations with Andre Iguodala and the Players Association about how we potentially can improve officiating.
A couple of other points: I’m hopeful that there will be some technological solutions when it comes to officiating. People are familiar with the Hawk-Eye technology owned by Sony. It’s used in tennis. We’ve been working with them for the last few years about creating the objective ability, for example, out-of-bounds calls. As I said before, there are 100 fingers on the floor at any point, different body parts.
So it’s not as technically straightforward or easy as I might have thought it would have been as a non-technologist, but they are working hard on that. Foot on the line, et cetera, goaltending, anything like that that can be objectively decided, I think to the extent we can do that, and we will. We’ll get that done in the next couple of years. It will then allow the officials to be more focused on the truly subjective calls, blocks/charge, et cetera, there is a foul, the sufficiency of the content.
So we’re working on that. What’s hard is on some of these calls- you said Anthony Edwards mentioned technicals, it’s very hard to have bright lines on some of those things. There’s a little bit of what you know when you see it. I know that’s not always satisfying to our players, but we work directly with them. We looked at a lot of tape with them. Players and teams, on occasion, will come into the league office and say. We want to talk about the way a particular player is being officiated, and maybe there’s something that the officials are missing.
Lastly, to your point about transparency, I think that’s one that the officials also have their own union. Everyone in this room is familiar with human resources issues, and nobody necessarily wants to have their employment record published, and I think we just have to find the right balance there.
No one ever asked you if you were a player for the day. What would you do?
ADAM SILVER: I would stop complaining about officiating. [Laughter]
But thank you for asking me.
