NBA commissioner Adam Silver’s horrible, no good, very bad season

Sports commissioners are the public face of the leagues they oversee. It’s a highly paid job, in part because it’s not easy to be the person who absorbs criticism on behalf of team owners.

For a while, Adam Silver enjoyed the fruits of a positive image. He was the tough-talking hombre who, in his first major act as commissioner, banned Donald Sterling “for life” before the former Los Angeles Clippers owner was forced to sell. Silver received applause, even if the stance was somewhat easy to take at the time. Most of the other owners already wanted the unpopular Sterling out, which made Silver look like a hero.

Since then, cracks have appeared in Silver’s well-polished image, and this season has been particularly bad. Yes, NBA ratings are up, and that’s certainly something the 30 NBA franchises will celebrate. But Silver has made an alarming number of missteps in 2025-26.  

Here’s a partial list of what’s gone wrong for Silver: 

• In the wake of the Pablo Torre Finds Out podcast about Aspiration, the company at the center of a salary-cap circumvention accusation involving Kawhi Leonard, Silver first claimed he had never heard of them. He later walked back that comment, though he hasn’t taken any kind of noticeable action on the matter.
• A coach (Chauncey Billups) and a player (Terry Rozier) were arrested in connection with an FBI gambling probe in October. Oddly, ESPN insider Shams Charania reported in June that “Terry Rozier as of now has been cleared.” Curiously, the NBA never disputed that report at the time.
• The regular season was plagued by rampant tanking, as teams tried to lose to secure better draft picks. Silver was slow to address the issue, and the league didn’t offer possible solutions until March. 
• Silver has been criticized for calling the NBA a ‘highlights-based sport‘ that fans can watch on Instagram, TikTok, or X.
• While calling Memphis a “great market for the NBA,” He drew ire from some by saying, “If it were up to me, I’d love for (the Grizzlies) to play a few games a year in Nashville and sort of be Tennessee’s team, to the extent that they can.”
• Silver defended Blazers owner Tom Dundon’s questionable cost-cutting by calling it a ”scrappy approach.”

Commissioners are supposed to instill confidence. Instead, Silver’s lack of leadership and decisiveness has left people asking questions. He hasn’t been proactive enough. He has misspoken far too often. He hasn’t provided a clear vision for the NBA’s future.

The unfortunate thing for Silver is that he will always be compared to his predecessor. But that’s an impossible standard, reminiscent of LeBron James chasing Michael Jordan. Silver will never be the late David Stern. No commissioner in any sport will ever wield that kind of authority. Stern lived at a time when the league craved leadership, and as a result, he accumulated unprecedented power over players and owners.

Silver doesn’t have that. Neither do Roger Goodell, Rob Manfred, or Gary Bettman. They all work for the owners. Nothing significant can happen in those leagues without their bosses’ approval. 

We’re going to learn a lot more about Silver once the Aspiration-Kawhi Leonard-Clippers investigation is over. This isn’t a court of law. Based on Torre’s extensive reporting, there is enough to reasonably believe the accusations. But will Silver have the backing of the other owners? The Clippers’ Steve Ballmer is the richest owner in American team sports. It seems unlikely that his peers would punish him, even if there is evidence linking him to possible salary-cap circumvention.

Short of that, Silver is going to have to work even harder to convince the public that he is the kind of commissioner we originally thought he was.