S1E5: NBA Commissioner Adam Silver

making all of the calls for the league. He's the top dog in the NBA. He's the most revered commissioner in all the sports. He is Commissioner Adam Silver. So we're gonna get to him in a few minutes. But right now we're gonna open up. I've got Sean Grandy here with me, and Sean, before we get into this whole conversation with the commissioner, I just gotta say we're into May now, and I feel like my internal clock

and calendar are just completely out of whack. I mean, I thought it was when we started the season at Christmas, but now we're when we're at the point where this should be halfway through the playoffs. Right now, I feel like I'm just completely out of whack. Am I alone in that boat? Well? How about the bubble last year when we're you know, people were going to work in shorts and it's it's eighty degrees, it's August, and there's

NBA going on. This true story. The other day, my wife says to me, Hey, did you know somebody in our family graduated from college this weekend? And my very first thought was, No, that's not did she graduate early? It's not that graduations. College graduations are in May, and it couldn't possibly be May because we're still in the

regular season, so everything's backwards. Although I was happy to see the Timberwolves tweet out that they had playing their first game in May since two thousand four, Like, yes, you know, whatever it takes, that's a great call out for them, great call out for them. But hey, you gotta do what you gotta do when you're in a certain situation. But no, we're we're talking about the last year plus and we're about fourteen months into this pandemic at this point, and that's one of the topics that

we want to talk about with Commissioners Silver. This has just been a crazy run for all of us. I mean it feels like I know it feels the same way for you. For me, it feels like I've been sprinting for fourteen straight months at this point with no break. As you just talked about, we were in shorts covering basketball last August. Usually that's the downtime that we get, right, we haven't had any of that over the last fourteen months. Where are you at, Like, is your tank completely empty

at this point? Well, this is you know, as you like to point out, because I've been around so long doing this job. This is the third third quote unquote lockout season, which is what really has been, which is the four games a week. It's been unlike any other for all of us because we are supposed to be traveling, so that comes with different things. It depends on what your home life really is like. For some people, the

road isn't escape from crazy life at home. For some people, the road can wear you down, so in that regard is completely different. But talking to Adam, I think we'll bring us all back, and I think it's important especially now once in a while for all of us. Were ever we are in our lives to go back to March eleven, because you realize not only how far we've come as a society, as a country, as a league,

all the things that we have been through. I think those days are important to remember because Adam Silver's decisions are concrete now because they're part of history. But I always talk about history is being wet cement, and on March eleventh of twenty was wet cement. It could have dried in any possible way. There were so many decisions he could have made. As you and I and the rest of the traveling party got in a flight from Milwaukee back to Boston and we were flying into an

unknown world. Those two hours in the air were indelible because we were all of a sudden being looked at. You remember, Mark, We got off the plane and as we don't remember because this is that game coincidentally was one of the I get like four game is off a year. That was one of the games that I had on so I wasn't actually on that trip. So as we get off the plane from Milwaukee, it's a

two hour flight. At that time, everything was very new and very scary, and the only thing that people knew about COVID at that point was that it had hit the NBA, it had hit the Utah Jazz, and the Utah Jazz had just played the Boston Celtics, so we were not necessarily flying back into open arms. I think they were happy at the hotel in Milwaukee that we

were leaving and we flew back. There were news helicopters over the plane when we got off, and it was feeling very much like we were being quarantined from the world. And masks were a new thing. Some of our players were already wearing them. Some of us hadn't even contemplated the idea of putting them on. These things that are now part of our daily lives. So I think once in a while, when we think about what might be considered difficult now, I think it's important and an important,

you know, sort of starting point. With Adam, the decisions he had to make going into a world now that we're intimately familiar with that in March and we knew nothing about this has been quite the stretch for him. But one thing I definitely want to touch on with him when we get to talk to him is about where the league stands. It's just crazy to me to look around the league. You've been around the league for

a long time. Have you ever been in a viewpoint of the league where you can look Almost every single night the Celtics play a game, there is a young star on the other team. It's just wild to me that this league is loaded with so much young talent right now, including the two guys on the Celtics Janalen Brown and Jason Tatum. During the playoffs last year, during in the Bubble games, I remember saying tweeting, think about the number of players, superstar players that are under twenty

in this league. And I filled up a tweet used of all the characters, and then I went to another one to reply. I went to another one and they were still people mad at me because you left out R. J. Barrett, and you left out this guy, and you left out that guy. And it's an indication there's never been there have never been more young elite players in the league

spread around, which is gonna be great for debate. Though every era in the league reaches the end of it, Larry and Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan's era, and eventually it's gonna happen with Lebron's here you go what's gonna happen to the league afterwards? And the league always gets better and it's never been positioned to get better more than it is now with seemingly a twenty three two year old superstar un virtually every team. It's crazy. It's crazy to see, it's crazy to watch, but it's a lot

of fun to watch and that's the best part. But we're gonna get into this conversation. We're gonna talk with Adam Silver. Sean, I think you've been having some tech issues on your end, so I hope, I hope, I hope your your internet hold still and doesn't drop out on you before we jump into this interview. But we will see. Well, I hope you're the guy with their fingers on the button, so I'm always suspicious when my

fingers are up in the air. Okay, this has nothing to do with me, but we'll see if it holds up. We're gonna jump into the conversation. Here it is Commissioner Adam Silver. Alright, Commissioner Adam Silver, welcome into the podcast. The last time we were able to have you on one of our shows, it was back I think it was four teen season. We had just launched a brand new pregame show. It was the first one that any team in the league had done, and you were deputy

commissioner at that time. So now here seven or eight years later, we're finally getting you on our podcast. So thank you for taking the time to to come onto our new endeavors. It's very much appreciated. Absolutely, thanks Mark my recollections. We were standing in the short of the end zone of the court game that interview. That was our location for a good four or five years, and now we're moving into the podcast space. So we're always trying to do new and exciting things here at the Celtics,

and this is definitely no exception. I've I've been talking recently and we're gonna try to get Shawn any in this conversations as we go through this. But we were we were talking before you jumped on about just how crazy this last fourteen months has been for everyone. It's been a WorldWind. It feels like it's been a sprint for everyone. But we couldn't wrap our heads around just

what it has felt like for you, in particular. Every decision that you make impacts thousands and thousands of people, and that's not easy, and I know it's something that you sign up for when you take on a position like yours, this commissioner in the NBA, But I'm just curious to get your perspective on what this experience has been like for you personally, um and maybe who you lean on for support when you're trying to make these critical decisions. Sure, so, you know, probably as it's been

for most people. I mean, I begin with sort of my family situation. I mean, office, I have young kids, and I have a young daughter trying to sort through what it meant over the course of the past fourteen months in terms of school and trying to explain what initially a coronavi IRIS was and COVID and you know, why she couldn't have grandma and all those issues. So I think from that standpoint, I'm probably not that dissimilar from many people who have been dealing with family situations.

And of course then there's the family members or friends who have gotten sick, some critically sick, you know, so those just putting our league in context, and the same discussion I'm often happening having with team people and players that we have to recognize that in the scope of things, how fortunate we are that we did find a way to continue playing through a pandemic and day to day in terms of my job, again, I think I've been very fortunate that I have a tip terrific group of

colleagues at the league office that I can lean on. As you said, you know when when you first interviewed me, I was then the deputy commissioner. I'm a longtime league employee, getting close to thirty years, and many of my senior colleagues have been with the league for close to the same amount of time. So, as they say, we can finish each other's sentences, and it's nice one, especially when you have a crisis, that you can turn to people

that you have complete trust in. And it's not just trust, but also their willingness to feel secure in their positions so that they will tell you exactly what they think. And even though you may be finishing each other's sentences, it also may mean that they're telling you what you

potentially don't want to hear in certain situations. But also then on the team side, I've also been very fortunate that there are a group of league owners, team owners and team executives, whether it's it's Rich Gotham there in Boston, or with Grousbeck, who serves on our Advisory Finance Committee, a group of team owners that I've relied heavily on.

We've had practically a meeting every week by zoom want an advantage of using this technology, that I've been able to be in regular contact with them, use them as

a sounding board to discuss issues. Steve Palauka is not on that committee, but he's also someone who's become a close friend over the years, got very involved in Massachusetts around COVID issues, and then as a whole host I'd save other team executive team owners again that I've been in regular contact with, so truly have like a fantastic group of you know, some of the most accomplished people,

frankly in the world. You know, when you look over the scope of of who's included in our ownership, who are experts and science experts in COVID have been dealing with these issues in their own businesses, and so it's it's truly been a collective effort. I'm glad you started out that answer talking about your personal life, because I feel like even with the with the players throughout the

league and with someone like you. Uh. I think fans sometimes forget about the personal side and that these these people are kind of two dimensional figures to them because they don't get to shake their hands and meet them in person very often, and they don't think about the family side of things. And there were some players who had to choose last season to kind of opt out

of the restart in Orlando. Can you just explain how you were able to balance the two, um, and how you continue you to balance the two of your personal life and um this constant sprint that we've had from a business perspective, Again, I have no secrets there, and I think even though maybe what we're doing and I include you at the league is much more high profile than what a lot of the listeners may be involved

in at route, our issues aren't that different. As people try to balance what it means to work at home, which it's hard to call this working at home when it's when you're required to do it in many cases during the pandemic, or balancing family issues, kid issues, you know, spouse partner issues, all those things go into the mix.

And again I'd say from that standpoint, I'm not all that different than a lot of other people, and probably at the end of the day, we're not even Probably I'm much more fortunate a lot of people because I have resources that aren't available to a lot of people.

We have this league. I have a good job, and I'm always mindful of that in my conversations with players, coaches, others you know, around the league, trying to put what we do into a greater context, because on one hand, there's been enormous sacrifices, particularly the layers and coaches and

basketball staff have had to make. I mean, living down in Orlando during the pandemic, being isolated from their families, given the social justice issues that were happening in the country the same time, real conflicts for a lot of our players and other basketball staff, and the fact that in the middle things they were then leaving home going

down there. I think particularly again, as as a parent, I recognized that as difficult as it may be to be away from a spouse, young kids made it that much harder because in so many cases, kids couldn't even understand why Dad. In some cases, Mom, We're leaving home for a lengthy period of time when there was so much happening around them and their lives had been so

you know, disrupted. At the same time, while there's great sacrifices that our community in the NBA is making, it's also important to look at the broader context now with well over half a million people dead from COVID, a

truly global ass you know, massive unemployment. Of course, things are getting better now, but looking back over the last four teen months, that was the context in which we were finding a way to play through it, and so I'm particularly proud again collectively as a league that there was a willingness from the players, the Players Association led by Michelle Roberts and Chris Paul as the president of the Players Association. He was someone also I've talked to

multiple times a week over the last fourteen months. He's done a tremendous job leading the other players, which isn't easy because I know how hard it can be with thirty teams, multiple team owners, team executives, often with a

different point of view. I think Chris has an even harder job when he is four and fifty players and they have all kinds of pressures of their own, depending on where that the team happens to stand, you know, whether they think competitively what he's doing is makes sense their personal issues too, So it's truly been a group effort, and I think the collaboration is what's made us successful at the end of the day, and the collaboration has been great to at us to where we are today

and through last season. It was fantastic, just an unbelievable effort that the league put together to get that going down at Disney. But I'm curious to ask you were there any points where you second guest any decisions that you made in kind of balancing the business perspective and your conscience of whether you guys are making the right decisions because it was uncharted territory that no one had ever stepped into before. By nature, I'm a second guesser.

I'm constantly second guessing decisions that I in the league have made. I mean one is, for example, when we initially decided to play in Orlando, and we had other options, some were written about, you know, we could have potentially gone to Las Vegas, for example. There were other markets that could have housed us sort of on in a campus like bubble environment to finish out the season. At

the time we chose to go to Orlando. Part of the decision was that Disney's our biggest partner, and here was this large area available as part of the theme part as opposed to being in a city where the campus would be essentially high rise hotels and arena people

could be outside. There were all these advantages to being down to Disney, to arenas down there, but one of the main advantages to going down in Orlando was at the time we were making the decision, you know, so this is roughly a year ago or a little or maybe you know, April of a year ago, Florida had one of the lowest case rates in the country, as everyone now knows, by the time we began playing in early July, they had one of the highest case rates

in the country. So there was enormous Yeah, so there was enormous second guessing around that had we picked the right spot, had we been over where we overly influenced by our partnership with Disney and ESPN. I mean, it worked out fine, obviously, and we got through it, and we had incredibly zero cases among players and coaches, which is even better than we predicted the bubble would work.

But there was also I'd say, so there was the physical location and then there, probably that while we thought about it, we were most focused on preventing our community from getting COVID. Of course, there hadn't been as much focused on the psychological impact of being down there away from family, the isolation that would come from it. I'm

not sure how much more we could have done. I mean, there was you know, there were a lot of counselors down there, you know, both provided by the players Association, by the league. Individual teams have their own people that they work with as well to help our community get through those issues. But again that wasn't easy at all either. And there there was never a time when I wasn't thinking, you know, have we made the right decision. And there was also the constant fear that maybe we could see

spread among the community down there. And one of the points I was making to our players in particular when we were deciding whether it played down there, because many of them were saying, to me, can you assure me that I won't get COVID and I'm down there, And

of course couldn't. What I felt most comfortable telling them was that on a relative basis, we felt being in that as part of that campus, that bubble in Orlando it would be safer than what they otherwise would be exposed to, unless they truly wanted to live their lives in a confined way. Meaning I said, you know, if you want to live in your home or your apartment and have access to no one, that will be safer.

But if you have family members that you live with or that your contact with other people and they are out and about, even if you're staying home, you're at risk. The benefits of being in this community is everyone is going to be tested on a daily basis. No one will and everyone quarantines on their way in. So we felt pretty comfortable there. And even this season, you know, it's it's like, look, I of course here and read the criticism. You know, should we have started the Christmas week?

Should we have played an All Star game, should we have a play in tournament, et cetera. And so if any of these decisions were so obvious, we would have made them years ago. I mean, there are two sides, multiple sides to all of these issues. When I hear and read the criticism or a told directly from players or team personnel, how they feel that packs me and including changing our mind occasionally on certain decisions so I'm just one of these people I think of anything what

I'm what we're seeing in society right now. And this is a broader comment beyond sports, is that people tend to sort of assign you know, sort of heroes and villains very quickly and view issues in true polarizing binary ways when there's a lot of ambiguity around virtually everything we do and lots of shades of gray, and and it's generally how I look at things, and if and if you look at things that way, it's hard to have complete confidence in anything you do because you're always

recognizing that there's another side of every issue. There may be many shades of gray. But I think you have made right decision and correct decision at their correct decisions since you took over as commissioners. So kudos to you to being able to maneuver through um not only this scenario but many other scenarios that have presented themselves since you took over. But you did mention something earlier when you were talking about Chris Paul and the Players Association

and Michelle Roberts Um. One thing that a stood out to me since you did take over as commissioner is just the level of respect and the level of trust that the players have in you, and the relationship that you guys have developed um in both in negotiations on all of the things that we've talked about and then many other things that we haven't talked about. How did

you begin to build that trust? And I'm sure that didn't happen overnight, and that started probably about thirty years ago when you when you became a member of this league. I think it's just that Mark. I think there are no shortcuts in terms of building trust. It comes from

being involved with this league for several decades now. I started in Many of the senior players in the Players Association weren't in the league at that time, but players like Chris and you know, other executive committee members of the union are now in their mid thirties, you know, so fifteen years plus having worked with them. I came from the business side of the organization in which some

people might not be aware of. Before I was deputy commissioner, I ran NBA Entertainment, which was a non adversarial way of dealing with players as opposed to being on the negotiating side or being a league lawyer. I was someone working with them from on marketing, on broadcasting, early days of the internet around the league, and I think that that was very helpful to me and building relationships with

players from that standpoint. But it's also I think as deputy commissioner now as commissioner, it's a function of putting in the time. I think that while there's certainly we've heard from many well known players recently who have been very public about disagreeing with certain decisions, the league has made that at the end of the day, I've been tried to be very transparent about how we make decisions.

It be very inclusive with the players Association. In certain cases, obviously things have to be bargained, so you have no choice but to be inclusive, but you can go above and beyond that and acknowledge when there are differences and make sure you're taking in other points of view at all time. I don't think there's any magic to it, but it's very labor intense it, especially during a pandemic. I mean, you talked about the last fourteen months and

trying to balance all the factors in my life. There are a lot of people who want to be heard from and needed to be heard from. Over the past year, and part of it is just taking the time to do that and making sure that you're available to them when they have a point of view, and genuine willingness to listen to their point of view as well. Well. It is certainly worked to this point. I'm I'm sure it's gonna work moving forward. But before we let you go it just one last topic that I want to

talk to you about is um. You know, we look at this league in the state of the league, and I don't want to necessarily ask you about the state of the business in the league, but more so of where we are with players in this league. You you go back to the last forty years, the majority of

the league has been pushed through specific rivalries. Back in the eighties it was the Celtics and the Lakers, and then after that it was by players with Michael Jordan and then Kobe and then mj But it seems to me like we're now beginning to enter this golden age of young stars throughout the league. If you look across the teams in the league, you've got about half of them that have star players who are twenty five years

and under. Um where do you see this this group of of young star players taken the league in the next generation. And we're talking about players like Jayson Tatum and Jylen Brown as Sean Grandy is finally able to join us here. But where do you see this group of young stars around the league taking taking the league over the into the next generation. Where I see these stars taking us is while we are a global league now.

I think what one of the main differences from the so called old days now have of our league was born outside of the United States, The NBA is well known and popular virtually every spot on this planet, and that given the advent of technology that now allows us directly to directly connect with people everywhere in really simplified ways, largely through phones smartphones, where anyone wherever are located without a hardline connection can now be watching you know, high

quality NBA video, which is relatively recent change in sort of how technology works on a global basis. I think with this abundance of young stars in the league is going to allow this league now to really move to another level. And to your point about the competition, interesting statistic that over the first sixty five years of the league,

so are now going into seventy anniversary. So over the first sixty five years, three teams, yours was one of them, one of the championship, and over the last ten years we've had seven different teams. So while we don't, you know, have NFL style any given Sunday competition yet, and I've always been jealous of that, and it may just be the nature of the sport it maybe there's things that we can do to create better competition, something we're always

thinking about that. I think what we're seeing now is a better distribution of talent that because of technology, players are realizing. And I think Janic's extending in Milwaukee is a good example of that. You didn't you know whether he had stayed or not. I mean, that's a personal decision he makes, and it's a function of how our

collective bargaining agreement works. But I think it would have been hard to make the argument to him that you will be a bigger star just by virtue of going to a market that has more people that if he had moved down the road to Chicago, because it's a much larger city, that that in itself would have enabled him to become better known or create better economic opportunity. We have a cap system, you know, we have an

individual player cap for for max players. And what I pleased to see happening in the league, the players are recognizing that the additional notoriety or economic success through endorsement deals or whatever else comes from winning. And that's what it should be about, the greatest incentive. And so whether you're in look at look at the success in Utah right now with those players. Obviously in Milwaukee, of course you want to see Boston successful to New York is

having success now as well. But I think even as I live here in New York looking at success of the Knicks right now, people are talking to you know, changes that have been made in the leadership of the team, not just with Tom coming in his coach and a great job he's doing, but you know, with with new general manager and new administration there as well. That's what you want to see. It's try to have more of

a level playing field in the league. So I'm hugely encouraged, you know, Jalen Jason, you know Marcus, you know, you have this great core as well in Boston. It's great to see them and and the things they're doing. Frankly, off the court as well, whether it's in social justice, whether it's through creating larger personas for themselves through social media. One of the real changes we're seeing too through these

platforms is that people can really see who these players are. It. Maybe they choose to talk more about social justice, it maybe they want to just talk more about what they value in life, or what their lifestyle is, or what their music is they're interested in. But I think for fans, it's just so many more multifacet ways to connect with these players, and I think that's what draws fans to

the game. Sean. I know you just joined and I were running out of time, but I'm not gonna leave with that at least answering at least one of your pin And I'm trying to choose right on a fly, like do I pick up what you were just saying, or do I go with the one I really wanted to ask, which is this? And that's the beauty of this. Right, We'll just mash it all together the way we wanted. You know how we are in the media, right, we

just put together the pieces that we want. Three years ago, I think it was three years ago you spoke to us at the broadcast meetings, and our good friend Mike Brain was doing a little Q and A with you, and he texted me the night before he said, I don't I don't have anything for Adam. I need What would you ask Adam? And I texted him the following question, which was, what is it that keeps you up at night?

And this is a year and a half before the pandemic, of course, and you gave an answer to us that was sort of off the record that day, and I'm not asking you to answer it now, but I thought of that moment in preparing to talk to you today after the pandemic, and the question is this because you gave a great answer that day, but a year later, seeing how you responded, how the league responded, how the players responded, how all of us who have whatever our

small little role is in this league have responded. Do you sleep a little better now? No, one, We're prepared for whatever might come next. It's such an interesting question, just in case your listeners are wondering. I certainly did not predict a pandemic with it was an off the record, but I didn't. There's this virus that I'm worried about. Um you know, i'd say showing the answer is I do sleep better knowing what an incredible community we have

in the NBA. That as a combination of the leadership from a fantastic group of team owners, and again Wick and Steve are great members of that group, but expertise across the board, high level executives both on the basketball and the business side, and really players led by their players Association and players individually who are incredibly thoughtful, who care about broader society around them. We're willing to make sacrifices. Incidentally, I'm not sure if this has been reported, but we're

now around our players have gotten vaccinated. You guys, remember it wasn't that many months ago when this community in particular was of the greatest concern in terms of hesitancy. I think they've shown incredible responsibility. I respect people's individual decisions, and there's no mandate to get vaccinated in the league, but I certainly personally think it's the right thing to do,

whether you're in the league or not. And so I've been pleasantly surprised from where we were a few months ago that that such high percentage of players have gotten vaccinated. I do feel comforted that we have such strong support around this league and ability to face difficult issues in the in the way we have. And and as you're pointing out, it's it hasn't just been the pandemic. In

some ways, there's been multiple pandemics. Social justice has been a pandemic, and economic crisis in this country has been a pandemic. And I'm also apple that part of my answer to Mark a minute ago that when you see people more polarized, that sports can return to being that platform, that community that can frankly help bring people together, especially when people start to come back into our arenas. I think that physical proximity is something we all really miss.

And you may have a disagreement politically with someone, but when you're sitting right next to them and you have that commonality of cheering for your team, you find a way through some of those differences. You say, all right, well we we we have a different view on this issue, but look at what we also have in common. And that's really important. One more ten second one before we let you go, which is the one thing is this really hit me the other day how much of your

job is what's happening right now today? What happened last night versus what the NBA and the game has to be needs to be five years from now, ten years from now, twenty years from now, because that is what always struck me is the extraordinary thing about your job is that you're they have to deal with what's happening today, but also a caretaker when it comes to TV deals, right steals the seeing how the future is going to

be for the league. The honest answer, I think if a management consultant was looking at how I spend my days, they would say, you're spending too much time in the here and now and probably not enough time looking out to the future. And I think I'm still in many

ways getting my sea legs as a CEO. I mean, I'm now almost seven or seven years into the job, but the last year plus has been in a pandemic, and probably over time I should be delegating more in terms of day to day and spending more of my time and spending more of time with team owners who are in particular committees whose responsibility is looking out to the future, thinking about five years from now and ten years from now, both from look at the trends that

are happening in media you know, enormous changes around us and the when the distribution through cable and satellite and what that means changes in the game that are probably necessary given the people of shorter attention spans, young fans who were feasting on highlights instead of live games. In

many cases they describe themselves as being passionate fans. You asked them one to ten, These are a lot of nine, but they're not accustomed to sitting down and watching two and a a half hour games, and so we have to think about how to change our business to actually bring them back to the live game. I mean, the commercial format changes may mean there's different types of interactivity and balancing that against the tradition of the game and not

doing things that seem too radical. And the playoff playing tournament is a good example. I mean, we were talking a little bit about that before you got on that. I understand that there's many sides to this, and there's the traditionalists. You say, oh, you play a wrong long regular season. Why in the world should you know a seven or eight seed in a in a two game tournament lose their place? And I understand that part of it.

On the other hand, listen to what some of the critics are saying, wait, we would have coasted a little bit the last month if you didn't have this play in tournament. But the responses that we have to pay a lot of attention to every minute of every game now in terms of continuing to cold fan interest because there's so many other options now for people to be entertained that you go on line there is unlimited and those are the kinds of things we have to balance

going forward. Commissioner you you mentioned that you're caught up in the day to day. We've all been caught up in the day to day for the last fourteen months. So um, thank you very much for for for making the decisions that have led us to where we are today within the NBA, and thank you for being such a great leader and for taking some time out to join us. Absolutely. Thanks Mark and Shawn. Good to see you too. Well. Sean, I'm happy you were able to

join us. For the end of that conversation, I'm glad you finally let me in. You probably have like all the master control buttons. He made sure to say, We're not getting out of here without me answering one of Sean Grandy's questions. It was that important to him. I told him the Boston Celtics lead the world and you know, all the all the championships and the most historic franchise. Whatever we gotta, we'll catch up on the on the technology.

Isn't it interesting when you talk to someone who is smarter than you that you feel like you are smarter when it's over. And I don't know about you. Here's what here's what hit me. When he went right away to individual reaction and you picked up on this, I thought it was great, which is the no of all of us. And I'm obviously talking about the players, but any of us who have a quote unquote public role. You are on people screens, you're on their laptops, you're

on their devices. But we have never been in people's faces, in their homes, in the palm of their hand more. There's never been more exposure. And yet there's never been a greater disconnect than my view, between the fans and the human beings who are playing the game, or who are running the game, or who are broadcasting the game, or who are covered who whatever it is. And that's

an interesting dilemma I think going forward. When a player sits out a game, because he's having depression issues or he's having personal issues, and I think there's a there's that natural reaction. It's almost like the fantasy basketball, fantasy sports element of just pushing a button and making a trade for this guy and he's in my lineup, and he should be producing twenty points and ten repounds a game, and you forget that this is a guy that may have had an issue with his wife, maybe his kid

is sick, maybe his parents are sick. You don't know. And there's no better example. The time I do that this year is whenever we talk about Karl Anthony Towns. Alright, this is one of the elite players in the league, and there's a natural tendency to say, well, he should be doing more at this age, he should be producing more. There's never been a year market which we have to step back more and realize we have all done an amazing job of creating what I call almost the illusion

of this being a regular NBA season. It's not, it is not. I think the more times we can peek behind that curtain, and I mean that's the first thing that Adam got into was personal life, and you had to latch onto that because this This isn't just the commissioner of the n b A. This is a human being. This is a father who has a lot of things going on off the court, as as we like to call it, um. But there's so many people around the league who have been affected by this throughout the pandemic,

people who have have lost family members and friends. UM. Commissioner Silver talked about some people that were close to him that that fell ill um with the with this

virus throughout the last fourteen months. So everyone's affected. And I hope that listening to that gives a little bit of UM, you know, just a different perspective to some of our fans that that it's not just the players who who are you know, who you have to consider as people off the court as well, but it's also the executives and people who are making these these gigantic decisions that impact so many people on the back end, like Adam Silver. I mean, there's they're across the league,

in every organization. In Boston, it's Rich Gotham, it's with GROSSPEC and at the league level it's Adam Silver just having to carry this heavy load on their shoulders every single day. And it's why I wanted to ask the question that is so fascinating to me because the job of all the people you mentioned in their specific roles, and Adam at the at the tip top, at the head of the snake, so to speak, is that it is not just managing through a pandemic. It is at

the same time. And I think the smartest people you're ever around. I don't know if you've you've found this to be the case, as you know, the older you get and I'm so much older than you. As as as we like to point out, we don't we don't have to talk about that is trying to manage these two different things at the same time of what is happening right now versus is the NBA gonna be on Amazon Prime in ten years. You have to think about this stuff now, we don't. A fan doesn't have to

think about that. The fans just show where's the game so I can watch it. But there's a million things happening. They all seem to be happening simultaneously. And one of those things, I mean, that's a perfect example of rewinding to last year when they're planning the bubble. I guarantee you Adam Silver was also trying to plan this season that we're in the middle of right now. UM, that

just having to think big picture like that. But one thing that stood out to me during that conversation is that he actually mentioned Las Vegas as one of the other options. And I know we've heard it reported. It was reported UM last summer that that that was in spring that that was a potential location for the bubble. But it was really interesting to hear him kind of outline the reasons why it wounded up being Disney in

Orlando as opposed to Las Vegas. And to me, it was a lot of obvious things that he that he outlined. Disney in in ABC and ESPN are one of the biggest partners of the league. Um, you've got a place where you can create a literal bubble where you can not let the public in, not let any of the

players out, or the staff. Whereas if you go to a place like Las Vegas, you're staying in a hotel where you might be able to block off some area, but you walk out of that little tiny area and you are out into the city of Las Vegas, and it's just so hard to create an actual bubble. I will say this, UM, and he kind of alluded to this.

If a bubble happened in Las Vegas, I don't think we come out of it with zero positive COVID tests, And who knows what would have happened, because if you get one at that time, it could turn into ten, turn into fifty, turn into a hundred. You just never know.

But I think it was the right decision to go down to Disney um And in hindsight, I think we know that knowing that they came out with zero positive tests and there haven't been zero positive tests during this season in which traveling parties have gone back to City point, and that's even being you know, being careful. I think this as people know the Celtics have gotten it worse

than everybody else. They're following the same protocols. There's an element of luck involved with this too, And you have to, uh, the irony is where do we learn the lesson of trying to improve your odds and play the math as well as possible? Las Vegas, right, but in this case, the math and the odds to give yourself the best chance for to stay the heck away from there. Uh, you talk about luck sewn. We were lucky to have the Commissioner, Adam Silver come onto this podcast today. I mean,

we've had some great guests so far. This is certainly someone who who's right up there at the top of someone that we didn't know if we were gonna be able to get. We were able to get him. So thank you to all the people on the back end who helped make that happen. Christian Megliola, that's a call out for you and Mike Bass over at the NBA, thanks for your help. And um, it was a great conversation. Hopefully our fans learned a little bit of something about

Adam Silver, the person. Uh not only Adam Silver, the commissioner. So Grandy, thanks for stopping by and I'm glad your internet wind up working for God. Thanks for letting me back in. I could have blocked you out, but I let you back in. I thought the conversation would be better with Sean Grandy. So that's it. That's a wrap on episode five. We'll see you guys next week.