NBA commissioner Silver tackling schedule and draft lottery

Such are things right now for the NBA that commissioner Adam Silver has the time to address non-critical issues facing the league. Brad Penner / USA TODAY

The NBA’s Adam Silver is in a pleasant place, for a sports commissioner, with the luxury of weeks or months without a crisis.

It gives him a chance to address topics that might soon be lost under the press of TV contracts or labour negotiations.

It is encouraging that he is talking about repairing the schedule, shortening the pre-season and pushing draft-lottery reform. His “state of the game” address at the all-star weekend, in New York, focused on reforming a fixtures list that sometimes asks players to play four games in five nights, which is a sure way to break down the league’s most valuable assets, its star players.

He noted that a one-week all-star break, which the players insisted on this season, reduced the league’s flexibility by cutting down on the number of days to schedule 82 games.

A possible solution, as he outlined, is to cut back on exhibition games ahead of the season, and start the campaign earlier, perhaps the last full week of October rather than the final day or two of that month.

He also conceded a sense of urgency in tinkering with the draft lottery, in which the worst teams have the best chance at the top picks. He would like to weaken the link between incompetence and draft reward “so fans see that our teams do not benefit from losing games”.

He will want to get movement on these issues soon because more difficult times lie ahead. Next year, how players and clubs will handle what may be a tripling of television money will be on the table.

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