Adam Silver Talks About the Pacers Future and NBA Schedule Changes

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver was in town yesterday for the Indiana Pacers vs Toronto Raptors and took some time to speak on issues about the league and the local team in Indianapolis.

Scott Agness was there and transcribed Silver’s take on the future of the Pacers.

"I think the future is spectacular. Herb Simon and his family have a locked, long-term commitment to this community. Herb Simon is actually, I was just pointing out, the longest-tenured owner in the NBA now. He and his brother [Mel] bought the team in 1983 so there’s this incredible history there. Herb Simon, since my early days in the league, he served as the chairmen of the board at one point. He’s still a very active committee member. He’s still very active in league affairs, a mentor to me. It’s great to see the franchise run so well. And compliments to Rick Fuson as well, in terms of how well this arena is run, active probably 300 dates a year. And we’re seeing this movement they really began here where arenas become part of the downtown community."

You can see Silver’s full media address in this video.

Adam Silver also discussed the hot-button issue of the NBA schedule.

As more and more marquee players seem to suffer more injuries, there is an increasing pressure to ensure that they are getting hurt because they are over-taking their bodies. Silver has shown a willingness to explore the issue and consider all solutions, and he has noted that the league is already looking into ways to adjust the regular-season schedule.

He said that the NBA is not — yet — considering a schedule shorter than 82 games. It could simply cost the league and the players money, he says. But they are looking to have teams play less often on back to back nights and not play four games in five nights.

Here is what he said in full on the topic:

“I’m not looking to reduce the length of the season,” said Silver. “It’s no secret: there’s an economic issue for the league and the players if we were to cut the number of games in the season. And I don’t think that’s the issue. Frankly as I travel, people only want more NBA — not less NBA … [But] by doing a better job with our arenas, we can perhaps clean out more dates. It’s great to see an arena like [The Fieldhouse] be the center of the community and therefore it gets used well over 300 days a year. But on the other hand, we’re competing against all those other dates. And so we’ve got to make sure that the NBA has the appropriate priority, so that when we do the schedule we can cut down on the number of back-to-backs and the four-games-out-of-five-nights.

“I think also, the relative value of an NBA game has grown over time compared to some of the other events in these buildings — whether it’s based on the media value locally, our new national television deals we’re going to be entering into in 2016-17, the international appeal of these games. There really is no such thing as a local game anymore in this league. Every one of these games is being shown to millions of people outside of the United States. These games are available on League Pass for fans anywhere.

“So we’re going to look at everything, but to me, in the first instance, we’ve got to look at how we can do a better job of scheduling within the existing number of dates. But then beyond that, should we be starting [the season] a little bit earlier? Can we go a little bit later? Those are also the kinds of things we can look at to try to stretch the season out a little bit.”

Next: The Pacers Starters Aren't Getting It Done

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