Adam Silver admits the NBA is ‘conflicted’ with the 1-and-done rule

NBA commissioner Adam Silver held his yearly All-Star press conference on Saturday and addressed athlete activism, player-referee relations, and, on his own volition, brought up the possibility that the league could change its current playoff format in the coming years.

It was different from last year’s press conference, which addressed various current event issues. But there were also topics like the one-and-done rule that is almost inevitably brought up at every All-Star press conference that Silver hosts, one of the few times each year that he provides open access to the media in this format.

Here’s a rough summary of what Silver said during the 30-minute press conference.

Silver described several reasons why the league has considered getting rid of the one-and-done rule, which prevents athletes from entering the NBA Draft until they’re 19, or one year removed from high school. For top American prospects, that year is almost always spent playing college basketball. Any decision the league makes about the rule would come with input from the NCAA, too.

“In terms of the NBA, we’re conflicted,” Silver said. “We’re outside of our cycle of collecting bargaining right now, which is when we generally address an issue right now, but (National Basketball Player’s Association president) Michele Roberts and I agreed there’s no reason why we shouldn’t be addressing it right now.”

Silver said that the NBA and the NBPA has shared data and has studied whether athletes have performed better with one year of college, or whether there’s more success when they come straight to the league. (The one-and-done rule began with the 2005 CBA.)

In his answer, Silver also addressed the role that veterans play as mentors to young players, whether the G-League program could be used as a development league “as it is designed to be,” and acknowledged that some top high school prospects are immediately ready to play in the league, despite the league’s current rules against it.

“The whole nature of the one-and-done is that we don’t have it in isolation,” Silver said.

The league has acknowledged that relationships between the players and officials have deteriorated somewhat this season, and that there have been active steps to regain trust between the two sides. Much of that might stem from an influx of new referees, as a number of older officials have moved to roles in the league office or retired altogether in recent years.

“I think the league should of course be playing a very active role between bridging that gap between officials and players,” Silver said when asked.

Silver said that one new change is that referees are meeting with teams in open forum settings during the season, something that typically only happened during the preseason in past years.

Silver was caught off guard, because he thought a question about whether the league would start selecting All-Stars without regard to conferences would actually be about the playoff format, and whether it would evolve to include the best 16 teams rather than the best eight from each conference.

Logically, the All-Star change would make sense, Silver acknowledged. He also address playoff formats once again.

“That is something that has gotten serious attention, not just recently, but over the past few years, at the league office,” Silver said. “We are concerned about the overall travel that we would have in the top-16 teams, but you could have a situation where the top two teams are meeting in the conference finals.”

Clearly, the league wants the best two teams in the league to be represented every Finals. Silver even mentioned adding more days to the season to help cut down travel even more. (This year’s NBA schedule cut back on the preseason while adding an additional week to the regular season.) However, it did not sound like any changes were imminent.

With a possible Supreme Court case being heard this year that could legalize sports betting, the NBA has taken proactive steps to be prepared for it. We’re still in the early stages, but they’ve suggested that the league should be owed 1 percent of all profits off sports betting should the model become actuality.

“It’s what our view of a model bill was, but we’re happy to sit with legislators and talk about what the best system would be,” Silver said.

The NBA feels entitled to such a cut because it would cost it money to legislate and ensure fairness in sports betting, Silver said.

Silver once again confirmed that the league feels they are close to having a full, 30-team development league in the G-League.

“It just is closer,” Silver said. “Next year, we’ll see 27 teams in the G-League.”

Silver referenced a stat that about 40 percent of current NBA players have spent at least some time in the G-League.

This week, a Fox News host questioned LeBron James’ ability to speak out on social and political issues, instead saying that he should “shut up and dribble.” Athletes, including James and Kevin Durant, responded strongly that they would do no such thing.

“Let me begin by saying I’m incredibly proud of our players using their platform they have to speak out about issues that are important to them,” Silver said. “And I was proud of Kevin and LeBron of the response that they made.”

Silver continued: “It’s not lost on me or anyone in this room that there’s an enormous amount of racial tension in this country, an enormous amount of racial injustice, and I think our league has a role in addressing that issue.”

Silver then referenced Bill Russell, who was sitting in the front row, as someone who has led the charge in the NBA even in decades past to promote social and racial equality.