NBA commissioner Adam Silver held his annual All-Star Weekend press conference on Saturday in Indianapolis. As usual, he addressed a wide range of topics, including the league’s new 65-game rule for award eligibility, the offensive explosion in recent years and the relationship between players and referees. Here’s a closer look at some of the key takeaways from Silver’s comments:
Silver ‘not sure’ if it’s time to separate supermax from awards
As of this season, players must appear in 65 games to be eligible for major honors such as MVP and All-NBA teams. The new rule has generated plenty of debate, in part because of how it impacts’ players contract incentives — most notably, the supermax extension.
Players must have won MVP in any of the three previous seasons, or have made an All-NBA team (first, second or third) and/or won Defensive Player of the Year in the most recent season or two of the three previous seasons to be eligible for a supermax. With the new threshold, there’s a very real scenario where a player falls short by a game or two, gets eliminated from All-NBA contention and threby misses out on tens of millions of dollars.
There has already been a push to de-couple contract incentives from awards that are determined by the media, and the 65-game rule has only added fuel to that fire. Silver, though, said he is “not sure” if it’s time to do that.
“As you know, a lot of thought went into the 65-game demarcation,” Silver continued. “Not only was it collectively bargained with the players, but we spent extensive time leading up to collective bargaining talking to all the various constituencies in the league, most importantly the coaches or general managers, individual players directly, and as was built into your question, the notion was we needed to further incentivize players, particularly star players, to play more games.
“So I’m not ready to say that it isn’t working so far. I can tell you that the number of games that players have participated in is up this season, and interestingly enough, injuries are actually down. Whether that’s meaningful data yet, I don’t know. I think the right time to take a further look at this rule is at the end of the season when we see — sort of at least have a year under our belt.”
Silver ‘pleased’ with state of game amid offensive explosion
The NBA’s scoring boom has continued this season. Already we’ve seen Joel Embiid and Luka Doncic reach the 70-point mark, the Boston Celtics are on pace to record the highest offensive rating ever (120.8) and players and coaches around the league routinely complain about how difficult it is to play defense these days.
Despite the league trending ever more towards offense, Silver said he is “pleased with the state of the game,” and noted the league’s main objective is to create a competitive environment.
“I think there’s a lot happening here, and I’ve talked to a lot of coaches and a lot of players about it,” Silver said. “I think, first of all, the skill level is off the charts. I think what we’re seeing is now in this league every player at every position has to be able to shoot the basketball.
“You’re seeing this global pool of talent coming into the league, some of the best athletes in the world, who can, frankly, just shoot the lights out. I think that’s partly what’s responsible for the increased scoring. I disagree with people who feel that teams aren’t playing defense. You’ve been covering this league a long time; the defensive intensity is there. Defensive players are asked to cover much larger areas of the court than they had to historically.”
Silver did, however, admit that the league will continue discussing the matter internally and with players and coaches to determine if any rule changes regarding defense will come into play.
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