The NBA really wants to nail down its schedule for 2026-2027. Media partners at NBC Sports, ESPN and Amazon want it, too.
He’s just waiting for LeBron James.
The league, well aware of a TV lottery when it sees one, is waiting to see where former Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James chooses to play next season, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said in a wide-ranging conversation at the CNBC/Boardroom Summit on Thursday.
James announced last month that he was leaving the Lakers, sparking immediate speculation about where he could end up next.
“We have to finish the schedule, right? And where LeBron plays will affect the schedule,” Silver said. Squawk box Anchor Andrew Ross Sorkin. “So I would like him to actually make his announcement, so he can finalize the schedule. Because as you might imagine, teams are calling us, networks are calling us, everyone wants to lock in the schedule. But that will impact how we set the schedule, how we set Opening Week, Christmas Day, et cetera.”
And perhaps Silver is quietly hoping for a certain outcome or two (like a return to Cleveland, perhaps?)
“On behalf of the league, I think there are some storylines that might be better than others,” Silver quipped when asked about the possibility. “But I don’t want to prejudge him. Let’s see what he will do.”
Silver also addressed a slew of other issues, from league expansion (Bob Iger is reportedly pursuing a Las Vegas expansion team) to the state of the NBA’s local media rights, which the league expects to take control of in the near future. Both YouTube and ESPN have expressed interest in the NBA’s domestic rights, and Silver noted that YouTube is by far the largest streaming platform, while Netflix has viewership on par with the major networks.
“Audiences are changing rapidly,” he said, suggesting that local rights will likely shift to streaming in the future, whether it’s with ESPN, YouTube or another entity. “I would love for it to be combined with local streaming as well because local streaming still has that scale that some streaming services don’t have.”
Then there’s Kaitlyn Clark, who was at the forefront of the WNBA news cycle after she was apparently shot in the throat by an opponent in a recent game, with that player not receiving a foul, at least not initially. It was reported this week that Silver asked WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert to review the matter, and he eventually reversed that request and declared it a blatant error.
Silver did not deny that he called Engelbert, instead expressing frustration with the media’s overwhelming treatment of Clarke, especially with political commentators commenting on the league’s treatment of her.
“I’ve gotten to know Kaitlyn really well. She’s a great player and a great person as well, and she wants to focus on becoming the best player she can be. She’s become a political football in this country, and I think that’s incredibly unfair to her,” Silver said. “I don’t think this issue is ultimately about officiating. The game of ping pong has become political with her, a young woman trying to improve her game focusing on being the best player she can be, and I don’t even think it’s fair to her for this to become a separate story about one foul that should have been called at the time or should have been called blatant after the fact.”
