NBA Commissioner Adam Silver was a guest panelist at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference in Boston this year, and while there he spoke candidly about the legacy of Michael Jordan, possible tweaks or perhaps a complete overhaul to the All-Star Game, and the issue of anxiety in the NBA, going as far to say that he believes many NBA players are happy.
“We are living in a time of anxiety,” Silver said. “I think it’s a direct result of social media. A lot of players are unhappy.”
“I’m an anxious person myself,” he said, joking a little. “That’s why the players like talking to me.”
Silver’s words come at a time when several league stars, such as Kevin Love and DeMar DeRozan, have come out publicly in the last year about their own fights with anxiety and depression.
And allow me to pre-empt the “these guys are making millions of dollars, how can they be unhappy?” tweets by just saying, please, do not do that. I’d write here about anxiety and depression being diseases that can affect anyone but this is a blog post about a basketball commissioner and I highly doubt I’d be convincing anyone, so uh, just be cool?
As for the other stuff! Silver spoke about this year’s NBA All-Star Game, and how despite the live draft of the two teams, it still wasn’t working, likening the draft format to putting an “earring on a pig,” a saying I plan on using often.
Silver floated the idea of a separate mid-season tournament, much like ones you see in European soccer, as a possible way to liven up the middle of the year and create a viewing opportunity that feels more immediate than whatever the NBA All-Star Game is.
Because it’s a sports conference, someone asked Silver about Michael Jordan
He said the Jordan era teams had more camaraderie, quoting Isiah Thomas: “Championships are won on the bus.”
So there’s your Michael Jordan bit for this story.
