NBA commissioner Adam Silver admitted that he’s not terribly fond of how the Philadelphia 76ers are rebuilding, but admitted there’s little he can do to stop it under league rules.
Silver appeared on FiveThirtyEight’s “Hot Takedown” podcast posted on Monday and offered his take on the Sixers strategy of getting the best draft picks possible and fielding uncompetitive teams several years in a row.
“I don’t want to answer that directly,” Silver said when asked if he was comfortable with Philadelphia’s strategy. “As I said, there’s a marketplace of ideas and approaches that go into managing a franchise.
“Am I fan of that strategy? Put it this way: No. But does that mean that it’s not acceptable under the league rules? It doesn’t.”
Silver denied reports that he had intervened and pushed the team to hire Jerry Colangelo, but he did admit that there are ways of intervening if necessary.
“Well, I would say that there’s lots of different ways of so-called ‘stepping in,'” Silver said. “There’s also cajoling and ongoing conversations that I have with owners, with team presidents, with general managers, where I’m expressing my opinion.”
Silver’s comments come as no surprise. It’s not good for the league to have a team that is openly tanking. It’s a chief reason that Silver pursued draft lottery reform recently.
