Adam Silver can’t save the NBA or men’s basketball. He’s dead.
Sunday’s NBA All-Star Game was just the latest in a decades-long series of obituaries detailing the tragic deaths of America’s hoops. Despite promises of a more competitive All-Star Game, Sunday’s contest may have been the worst ever. In this game, 168 three-point shots were made, and the East defeated the West, 211-186.
Twenty years ago, the NHL locked players out for an entire season and fundamentally changed its pay structure. The NBA needs a similar fix.
No one tried. No one competed. Players roamed up and down the court, making threes and moving out of the way of players dunking. Fans in the stands spent more time gossiping than cheering. One of the players said the highlight of the night was between the third and fourth quarters when a group of entertainers used trampolines to dunk.
The truth is, NBA All-Star Weekend reached its peak on Thursday, when football legend-turned-podcaster Shannon Sharpe and comedian Mike Epps squared off.
anti-american culture
Men’s basketball is over. Mr. Silver cannot resuscitate what his predecessor, Secretary David Stern, killed.
Yes, David Stern killed American basketball. At Nike’s request, Stern focused the game on international growth in general and pleasing China in particular.
The modern non-competitive woke NBA is a byproduct of globalism. The NBA has abandoned American identity and values in pursuit of more money. It has itself become a platform for expressing anti-American sentiments, narratives of entitlement, victimhood, and authenticity.
The NBA’s marketing strategy for the past 20 years has been, “Watch LeBron James and other tall black men overcome racism like they’ve never seen it before.”
This marketing doesn’t just offend conservative sports fans. No, it’s much worse than that. It convinces the players that they are victims. It creates a sense of entitlement among alleged competitors.
How did Michael Jordan go from playing all 82 regular season games in nine of his 15 seasons to having to beg his players to play 65 games? They are creating an anti-American culture that seduces the very wealthy into believing that they are victims of racist capitalists.
contempt for fans
The NBA’s desire to be popular in China has led the league to embrace messages that denigrate American culture. The Chinese Communist Party loves to promote America as a bastion of anti-black racism, no different than Cold War communism.
Every time LeBron James claims that black men in America are hunted like animals, his popularity in China soars and his attitude toward American sports fans declines. No American sports league has a more adversarial relationship with its fan base than the NBA.
Players fight with fans on a daily basis. The players instructed security to throw fans out of the arena. Michael Jordan felt an obligation to serve and entertain his fans. Modern players have a hard time tolerating fans.
The players are elite. They look down on those who love them. I believe the players owe something to the fans.
Adam Silver can’t solve this. His best efforts have failed. The mid-season tournament to start the basketball calendar was a failure. It was a gimmick. The Lakers won. They are the 9th best team in the West.
The expansion of the playoffs and play-in games rendered the regular season meaningless. In seven straight games, it’s almost impossible for a lower seed to pull off an upset.
pay for victory
The NBA is a league of gossip and stories. The biggest competition is between the individual player groupies of Jordan, LeBron, and Kobe, and the never-ending debate over their position in the greatest debate of all time.
The only way to improve American basketball is to shut down the NBA for a year or two and force the players into a new system and pay structure. Twenty years ago, the NHL locked players out for an entire season and fundamentally changed its pay structure. The NBA needs a similar fix.
The league needs to work to ensure that a significant portion of salaries are reflected in wins and losses. To avoid player stacking on the roster, each roster spot has a specific value for him from 1 to 15, and the most valuable player has more value for him than the player ranked below him on the roster. Earnings per win are higher.
For example, LeBron could be ranked No. 1 on the Lakers and Anthony Davis could be No. 2. LeBron could earn him $200,000 per win. And Davis will make $175,000.
Another big adjustment the league needs to make is raising the minimum age for players to 21. Thanks to their name, image, and visibility, college athletes can now earn large sums of money. Professional basketball would be much better off if players stayed in college for three or four years and brought established brands to the NBA.
The NBA needs revolutionary war and change. Adam Silver is not the right leader for this war. He is a peacetime consigliere. He’s not built to withstand the upheaval needed to rebuild the NBA.
