If you haven’t heard yet, the new NBA season starts Tuesday night, and NBA commissioner Adam Silver made the media rounds ahead of the 2025-26 season.
If you didn’t have the chance to catch everything he said — why would you? — The Athletic has a best-of-Silver compilation.
Expansion and relocation
The NBA is still considering adding franchises, Silver said, though it seems to be moving slower than expected. The NBA is currently at 30 teams, and one concern for owners is diluting its current revenue with two more teams.
There is, of course, a way to solve two problems at once if the NBA wants to add a new market but doesn’t want to split revenue among more ownership groups: relocation.
“We’re always looking at everything,” Silver told Sports Illustrated. “We wouldn’t be doing our jobs as a league if we weren’t always thinking about how we’re doing in our existing markets. There is absolutely no intention now to relocate any particular team, but it becomes part of the discussion. I think as we look at arena situations in given markets, we look at the ebb and flow of population in the country and economic prosperity in particular markets. We always want to make sure that we are in markets that can sustain a competitive team.”
Silver didn’t name any specific teams, but a few franchises immediately come to mind, including the New Orleans Pelicans. The Pelicans’ lease at the Smoothie King Center runs out in the summer of 2029. New Orleans also hits some of the other metrics Silver mentioned. The population for the greater New Orleans metro area has decreased by 24 percent since 2020, according to the St. Louis Fed’s population numbers.
Something to keep an eye out for, if the NBA does have a plan to eventually get a team to Seattle, Las Vegas or Mexico City.
End of the dynasty?
On the morning the NBA returned to NBC for the first time in two decades, Silver sat down for a brief interview on the network’s flagship morning show, “Today.” He was asked if NBA fans have seen the end of dynasties, with seven different champions in the past seven years.
“We’ll see if it’s the end of the dynasty,” Silver said. “What we set out to do was create a level playing field in terms of competition, but not necessarily to have a different champion every year.
“So I think that will be determined on the floor. I don’t think (Oklahoma City) — I’m going out there tonight — I don’t think they think it’s the end of the dynasty. They may be a preseason favorite. What we wanted to happen, in the NFL they have a similar system, you still have dynasties. The goal is to have fair competition every night.”
The state of the play has been widely scrutinized for the new 3-point era ushered in by Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors dynasty. Last season, NBA teams averaged 37.5 three-point attempts per game, a stark contrast to as recently as 2013-14, when the Houston Rockets led the league with 26.5 attempts a game.
Midrange shots have become antiques as teams opt for either paint touches or long bombs.
“There’s no question it’s changed the game,” Silver said. “I think analytics have taken over in every sport, and it’s an inefficient shot to shoot a mid-range two-point shot as opposed to a 3-point shot. We talked about it at the league.
“Once we got into the playoffs last year, nobody said they were missing the mid-range 2-point shot and the 3-point shot is a higher level of difficulty. It’s something we continue to look at. Games evolve over time. From the game last time we were on NBC, big men could never shoot the way they can now… People love the modern NBA.”
All-Star Game changes
Last year, the three-team, eight-player NBA All-Star Game format garnered only 5.5 million viewers, a small increase from 4.59 million in 2023, an all-time low. A new format for 2026 that pits Americans and international players against each other should be more competitive, particularly since the past seven NBA Finals MVP awards have gone to players born outside of the U.S.
“We’ll see the All-Star Game back on NBC,” Silver said. “We’re thrilled with that. We will be right in the middle of the Winter Olympics, which will be on NBC. We thought this was the season that made sense to have U.S. versus international competition. We’re playing around a little bit with the precise format. Roughly a third of our league is international, so we have to figure out a way to make it fair to the All-Stars. If one third of the team is international, we want to make sure that the U.S. All-Stars get a fair shot. Essentially the competition will be U.S. versus international. I think the guys will get up for that.”
The last American-born MVP was James Harden in 2017-18. Silver was asked if the global growth has come at the expense of domestic talent.
“No chance at ‘the expense of,’” Silver said. “But I think that graphic about the last (seven finals MVPs) being international, I think that gets USA basketball… energized. I think there are things we need to do with our youth. Things we need to do about youth development. There are aspects of the international game, especially in terms of young players, boys and girls, (that are) better than what we’re doing in the U.S.”