NBA Commissioner Adam Silver on Thursday said that the league's health "is pristine," and the most common complaints "would involve minor tweaks that could perhaps improve the game," according to Gary Washburn of the BOSTON GLOBE. Silver said of an increase in injuries, "There are more high-profile players seemingly that are injured this year than last year. So that always concerns me." Silver: "One of the things we know we think will make a difference is to reduce the number of back-to-backs and to create more rest." Washburn noted Silver "has a major challenge ahead to avoid sets of consecutive games without beginning the schedule earlier -- which would conflict" with the MLB postseason -- "or extend the schedule, which would spill into July and compete with the heart of baseball season and NFL training camps." Silver said, "We’ve revamped the entire scheduling process this year to try to do everything to clear more windows at our arenas, to clear more broadcast windows. ESPN and ABC and TNT have been very cooperative in releasing sort of Thursday night and Sunday afternoons, releasing their exclusivities to allow us to schedule other games in those time slots." NBPA Exec Dir Michele Roberts in March said that she would "prefer -- and it was a possibility -- for the union and the league to agree to a new CBA before the union opts out" in '17. Silver "agreed, lending credence to the theory that there is newfound harmony." Washburn noted Silver "gushed about the overall health of the league," which perhaps offers "ammunition to the union." Silver: "The league is doing incredibly well. The players are doing really well. Popularity is at an all-time high. I think it would be very constructive to sit down sooner rather than later" (BOSTON GLOBE, 6/7).
THE HONEYMOONERS: GRANTLAND's Bryan Curtis wrote Silver still "is in his honeymoon phase with the press," as evidenced by Thursday's State of the League address. Curtis: "To hear the questions he was asked and the answers he delivered, the NBA is great. Just great." Silver, however, "would like to see more data before he says for sure." For all its "conquer-the-world rhetoric, the NBA is still a small, leaky canoe next to the NFL’s Carnival cruise liner." A showdown with Roberts and the NBPA "is around the corner." Silver’s halo "will be dented from that or from discipline issues." For now, however, "we are in a bubble in which the NBA not only seems cooler than the NFL, but morally superior to it" (GRANTLAND.com, 6/5).
