Stephen Curry as part of the virtual event will have a one-on-one chat with ESPN's Doris BurkeNBAE/GETTY IMAGES
The NBA's Jr. NBA Leadership Conference will go virtual this year due to the pandemic, with Warriors G Stephen Curry and NBA Commissioner Adam Silver taking part in the event hosted by ESPN's Jay Bilas. For the past three years, the Jr. NBA conference drew about 500 members of the youth basketball community to Chicago. This year, the league expects a far larger audience given that the virtual event, set for May 15 from 12:00-2:45pm ET, for the first time will be livestreamed free on the NBA App, NBA.com and Jr. NBA.com and across the NBA and Jr. NBA's Facebook, Twitter and YouTube channels. Silver will speak at the conference followed by a series of panels, including a one-on-one chat between Curry and ESPN's Doris Burke. Other participants include Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle, former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy, Univ. of South Carolina women's coach Dawn Staley and Clippers coach Doc Rivers. "We relaunched the Jr. NBA in 2015 and launched the first conference in 2017 thinking that it was important given the highly fragmented nature of youth basketball," said NBA Senior VP and Head of Youth Development David Krichavsky. "It has become a big part of the event calendar. We expected more than 400 attendees in Chicago but when the situation changed, we pivoted to a virtual conference. We have made it free and now we will reach a global audience." Attracting the caliber of speakers in Curry and Carlisle among others became easier via the virtual approach. "The speakers don't have to be in Chicago,” Krichavsky said. "In other years the conference was in-season in the NBA so access to players and coaches this year is different. It will be a unique opportunity for the youth basketball community to hear from Adam Silver and Steph Curry."
