Mail Monday: What NBA Owners See in Adam Silver
So a few of you asked about this…
It was the worst of Silver times, it was the best of Silver times…
Adrian Wojnarowski announced that NBA commissioner Adam Silver was finalizing a contract extension, in a Saturday report that was nearly concurrent with the news that reigning MVP Joel Embiid was skipping his much hyped ABC face off against former MVP and fellow big man Nikola Jokic. To many a hardcore NBA follower, this news was about as frustrating as it was funny. We get a very “Adam’s league” result, just at the moment we’re told it’ll be Adam’s league for long time. And then we got treated to a fantastic overtime game between the Warriors and Lakers, a classic Steph vs. LeBron battle that inspired about as much nostalgia for the past as it did thrill in the present. To those concerned about the NBA’s direction, it was hard not to wonder about where it’s headed under Adam.
But the owners seem to have signed on, for a few different reasons. One might be that he’s already landed the plane on a TV rights deal, unofficially. The speculative buzz is that it’ll be ESPN and TNT, with a slice going to Amazon. There’s an expectation of an April announcement, but we shall see. Can the unofficially official be derailed? And what other aspects of Adam’s situation have kept him as NBA steward?