Adam Silver on NBA’s new load management policy: ’65 games is the lowest threshold’

The NBA will look different next season in several key aspects, so who better to break it all down than NBA commissioner Adam Silver? He joined Craig Carton, Will Colon and David Jacoby on “The Carton Show” on Thursday to preview the upcoming season and this new era of professional basketball.

One of the biggest changes that will impact the NBA’s biggest-name players this season is the requirement of 65 games to be eligible for postseason awards, including things like All-NBA teams, a status that is tied to the amount of money players can earn on max contracts under the league’s salary cap bylaws.

Silver revealed Thursday that he is worried that the 65-game threshold is being viewed differently than it was intended to.

“I am concerned that the 65 games will be viewed as the expectation rather than the lowest threshold for winning awards,” Silver said. “We came up with 65 through negotiations with the Players Association. That includes injuries, and that includes potentially longer-term injuries over the course of the season.”

“On the other hand, you’ve heard Joe Dumars, our head of basketball operations, saying the expectation is that players who are healthy will actually play 82 games. So the 65 number is more of a failsafe, in terms of incentive, that if a guy was really going to sit out again, having nothing to do with injuries, that he wouldn’t be eligible. We’re trying to say, this goes to those fans whether in the arena, or people watching on TV or whatever device, that the expectation in this league now is that we are an 82-game season, and if you’re healthy, you’ll play.”

Silver also expressed his enthusiasm for the NBA’s new midseason tournament, which he confirmed draws heavy inspiration from European soccer formats where there are several different in-season tournaments throughout the various leagues in addition to interleague competitions like UEFA Champions League, considered the most prestigious club competition on the continent. 

“That’s really where the concept came from. And even though the ultimate goal in European soccer, of course, is to win the championship, the guys care a lot about these cups there. They care about it for pride, they care about tradition, and they care about them financially. So the thought was in the NBA, we could take a page from European soccer and add this cup format.”

“It’s games that with the exception of the very last game, the final game, that would be the 83rd game, but all the other games, are games they would be playing anyway.”

Silver is expecting enthusiasm not only from basketball players with international backgrounds used to these kinds of cup formats, but also said he has received buy-in from conversations with some of the NBA’s veteran American standard-bearers such as Chris Paul, LeBron James and Kevin Durant.

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“They’re like, ‘Alright, alright, you know, I get it. I understand what’s supposed to happen here,'” Silver said. “‘It’s not the Larry O’Brien trophy, but I’d like to be the first one to win the NBA cup.'”

One of the NBA’s younger international-born players set to make a splash is San Antonio Spurs rookie Victor Wembanyama, who comes in with sky-high expectations and is seen as a generational talent. Silver was reluctant to add to those expectations, but he did compliment Wembanyama after interacting with him at the 2023 NBA Summer League in Las Vegas. 

“He’s from France, doesn’t really know the tradition of the NBA and the summer league and he said, ‘I didn’t know it was that big a deal,'” Silver said. “Then he went out the next day, and in like 25 minutes, he scored 27 points and had 12 rebounds. … He’s just sort of like, ‘I just want to show people I can do this if I want to do this.'”

Wembanyama is just the latest — and possibly greatest — chapter in a golden age of foreign-born players dominating the MVP, including the league’s last three MVPs, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Nikola Jokic and Joel Embiid. It’s an “invasion” that Silver welcomes, pointing out that many of those players have had a different basketball upbringing than most top American-born stars in the NBA.

“What we’ve seen with the European players, they’ve brought a different aspect of the game to the NBA,” Silver said. “A more skilled game.”

Still, Silver is currently not open to pitching a U.S. vs. World format for the constantly evolving NBA All-Star Game format, pointing out that although the international player pool in the NBA has increased to a third of the league, it would be unfair for the other two-thirds to jostle for half of the All-Star spots in any given year. He does, however, think that a U.S. vs. World competition like the Ryder Cup in golf could be intriguing.

Silver also said he is happy with several current trends in the NBA, from the fact that the last five champions have all been different teams, and that nobody is questioning whether Antetokounmpo or Wembanyama can become stars while playing in smaller markets like Milwaukee or San Antonio. He also said that getting a new collective bargaining agreement done was a big step towards expansion, and while some hurdles remain, he thinks the NBA may be getting closer to becoming a 32-team league.

“It’s not a secret [that] Las Vegas is a city we’ve looked at, Seattle is a city we’ve looked at, we were there in the past,” Silver said. “One of the things even walking around in New York, where I live, it’s amazing how many people come up to me, Sonics fans, saying, ‘We’ve gotta get the team back. When I got to the league, we still had the team in Seattle, and it’s a wonderful market. And it’s amazing what the tradition that’s been built in Vegas with the back-to-back WNBA champions now and what football is doing, their hockey.”

Carton and co-host David Jacoby also pointed out that with Michael Jordan stepping down from being majority owner of the Charlotte Hornets, though he still retains a minority stake, maybe Silver and Jordan can play a game of horse. Silver, though, respectfully declined for a simple reason.

“There is no sporting activity, from ping pong to golf to basketball, that I would dare to challenge Michael Jordan,” Silver said.

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