While the NBA has remained a powerhouse on social media — successfully engaging younger audiences over the past several years — the league faced growing scrutiny and criticism about its overall state.
One of the biggest concerns is the length of the season and the consistency with which players perform and compete night in and night out.
That’s not even to mention the decline of All-Star Weekend, its festivities, and particularly the All-Star Game, which has become one of the most criticized aspects of the NBA.
Amid these ongoing issues, The Ringer’s Bill Simmons questioned whether NBA commissioner Adam Silver truly has the league’s and fans’ best interests in mind — remarks that have sparked calls for Silver’s removal.
“To me there’s like huge fundamental issues with the league,” Simmons said this week. “The regular season has real issues. It’s too long. Guys are getting hurt too much. Everybody’s making so much money; the only reason to have 82 games is because you make money from it. You go down to 70, you make less money.”
“Guess what, Devin Booker instead of making $75 million in 2028, he’ll make $73. He’ll be fine. Everything they’re doing, they’re not serving the longer picture of what fans want, how to keep players healthy, how to have a competitive season from start to finish, how to avoid over a quarter of the league not giving a [expletive] for the last two months. How do we fix this? And it’s the first time I really wondered: do we have the right guy running the league? Because he doesn’t seem interested in actually fixing real problems that everybody can see.” he continued.
“This is the first time you’ve wondered whether or not Adam Silver is the right guy to run the league? Seriously?” A fan said.
Someone else added, “As long as you can watch a 10 second video of Anthony Edwards dunking on Twitter Adam silver doesn’t care what the actual games look like.”
Another person wrote, “I’ve wondered that about Silver for a while now. Seems like he’s not up for this.”
“Adam needs to be the guy in the dark eye-shade visor in the back room, counting the money. He’s not a leader,” a fan shared.
One more person commented, “Silver has ruined everything Stern did.”
In 2024, Silver signed an extension with the NBA’s Board of Governors, keeping him in the commissioner role through the end of the decade in 2030.
He replaced the late David Stern in 2014 and remained in the position since. His most recent initiative, the in-season tournament, hasn’t necessarily eased debates over the length of the regular season, but it has increased early-season competitiveness among players, despite some of the backlash it’s been met with.