“Well, Commish, what do you think?”
Those are the words that NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has heard time after time since Kevin Durant joined the Golden State Warriors on July 4, 2016 as a free agent.
Durant’s decision has allowed the Warriors to eliminate all of their competition and Silver has come out and said that it is beneficial to the league.
Silver, who took over as commissioner in 2014, is weighing in on his first controversial debate as the boss and isn’t getting short-changed in that regard. Although he has been left to decide what to do with some off-the-court issues, he hasn’t had to make a decision that directly impacts the season…
Until now.
Reporters are giving him no option but to talk about competition in the NBA or lack thereof any chance they get.
In a conversation with Adam Kilgore of the Washington Post, Silver retracted his past statements that shamed the formation of superteams and said, “rather than talking about how to break up or knock down a championship-caliber team, my focus should be on how we do a better job developing more great players in this league.”
But, when it comes down to it, it doesn’t matter what he thinks. And yes, I am talking about the commissioner.
Each team is its own company and the NBA is like a mini-government and the “society” was developed in the ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s. It was built on the concept of a free-market and has given the teams and players the freedom to decide where the money ends up.
Since the turn of the century, the NBA’s balance of power has been maintained by the players’ tendencies to chase the money around, but, that has disappeared with the passage of time. Now, winning and winning championships is the number one priority for the league’s biggest competitors.
The desire to win championships is has led superstars to meet up and form these superteams. Players have learned to care more about winning more than money and there is nothing that the NBA can do about it. Nothing.
The new mindset has everything to do with the personal lives of the NBA players and is all about what they want. If the players are willing to take a pay-cut to go and contend for a championship, that’s up to them.
Silver can’t tell them what job to take. Nobody can. These players are grown men.
