Is Adam Silver the right person to be leading the NBA? Bill Simmons isn’t so sure.
During the latest episode of The Bill Simmons Podcast, The Ringer founder and Fox Sports’ Nick Wright discussed the litany of issues the league has faced in recent years. And after pointing to problems, including egregious examples of teams tanking and the recent rise in player injuries seemingly tied to the length of the regular season, Simmons went so far as to question whether Silver is the right person to serve as the NBA’s commissioner.
“All this sh*t, everything they’re doing, they’re not serving the larger picture of what do fans want?” Simmons said. “How do we keep our players healthy? How do we have a competitive season from start to finish? How do we avoid over one-fourth of our league not giving a shi*t for the last two months? How do we fix this? And it’s the first time I really wondered, like, do we have the right guy running the league? Because he doesn’t seem interested in actually fixing real problems that everybody can see.
“And it’s not about like, ‘look at the NBA Cup. Oh, we created this thing.’ Your schedule is too long. You have to fix this. It’s too long. It should be 70 games.”
Wright largely agreed, with the two specifically honing in on the tanking issue the league has faced in recent years. That included Simmons stating his belief that while Silver is “ethical” — a key quality for a sports commissioner to have — the NBA may also be in need of a leader who is more willing to put his foot down.
“You need to have someone who they trust is ethical,” he said. “But you might need a f*cking assh*le at this point. You might need like mid-2000s David Stern.”
While many conversations regarding the NBA’s issues are rooted in bad faith arguments, Simmons and Wright’s discussion came from the perspective of two longtime diehard fans who genuinely care about the league. And despite the NBA’s recent financial success, with the league currently in the first season of an 11-year, $7.7 billion media rights deal, it’s certainly fair to wonder how issues such as tanking, injuries and load management could threaten its long-term health.
Ultimately, these issues aren’t anything new and it’s not like Silver hasn’t tried to address them in the past. But the longer the league goes without finding actual solutions, the more questions like the ones Simmons and Wright are asking are going to persist.