Tanking, resting players drives NBA commissioner Adam Silver ‘crazy’
By John Buhler
NBA commissioner Adam Silver had to answer tough questions before the 2017 NBA Finals. Apparently teams tanking and resting players “drives [him] crazy.”
The 2017 NBA Finals between the No. 1 Golden State Warriors and the No. 2 Cleveland Cavaliers are underway. This is the third straight meeting between these two basketball powers. Before the opening tipoff in Game 1 in Oakland on Thursday, NBA commissioner Adam Silver met with the NBA Finals media.
When asked about how he felt about the NBA’s two biggest problems, bad teams tanking and star players resting, commissioner Silver responded like he probably should have, “it drives me crazy.”
Silver would point out that these two problems have persisted in the NBA for the last several decades. He would state that tanking was a reason that the NBA Draft Lottery was created back in 1985.
Today, we know have teams tanking to better position themselves for that 25 percent chance of draft a one-and-done freshman that could potentially think about being a decent player one day. Tanking hasn’t been good for a long time, but that isn’t as glaring of a problem as star players resting on nationally televised games.
Perhaps this is the players fighting back about being overexposed on too many nationally televised games? Seemingly every other day, teams like the Cavaliers and the Warriors are on nationally televised games on ABC, ESPN or TNT.
If there were more compelling teams that could drive ratings besides Golden State, LeBron James and triple-doubles, maybe the NBA wouldn’t have this issue? Superteams are often a scapegoat for many of the league’s problems, but people like to watch greatness in full effect, whether or not they like to admit it.
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The problem is that the NBA is a star-driven league, having been that way since Silver’s predecessor David Stern did that to ‘save’ the league back in the 1980s with Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. These two issues may be driving Stern crazy, but they have been the norm in the NBA for some time. Hopefully Silver finds a way or two to rectify these issues here soon. They aren’t getting any better.