The NBA Cup has been fun. The courts are loud, the players seem to care, and the league wanted something to spice up December. Fair enough.
But here’s what the league doesn’t seem to enjoy: Questions. Pushback. Anything that suggests the Cup might not be a flawless masterpiece delivered from the scheduling heavens.
So when The Athletic’s John Hollinger wondered aloud last week if the early-season crunch could be linked to an uptick in soft-tissue injuries, the NBA spent nine full days stewing over it before firing back with a formal statement on social media. A long one. The kind written by someone who definitely did not shrug and move on.
The league called the idea “inaccurate and misleading.” They listed the number of games played over the first 42 days of past seasons. They pointed out that stars are missing fewer games than this time last year. They pushed the numbers across the desk and basically said, “See. Nothing to see here.”
And fine. Maybe the data backs them up. But it also wasn’t the whole point.
Hollinger raised two issues. One was injuries. The other was the strain created by all those strange one-game homestands and quick turnarounds that teams have privately grumbled about since the Cup format arrived. The league addressed the first one. It skipped the second entirely.
It’s OK, NBA. You can say the Cup needs a few tweaks. Every new idea does. You can also let someone question the format without responding like Apple defending the battery life on the new iPhone.
Because here is the thing — the Cup has been good. But it has also created an unusual December rhythm. Teams feel it. Trainers feel it. Fans sense it. And it is fair to ask how all of this fits into an already long season.
Instead, the league met a column with a press release.
If anything, that tells you everything you need to know. The NBA wants the Cup to work. It wants it to matter. And it really wants everyone to say it is perfect already.
It just might be the only event in sports where the games are fun, but the league office is the one that needs to relax.
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There is such a small number of NBA stars that tracking their availability percentages and their up and down ticks is relatively pointless.. You have a handful of starts getting old.. missing games.. getting injured. Medical staffs have become so cautious and sometimes negligent to the point that their players aren’t in game shape enough to not get injured..
Anybody whining about stars not being available enough needs to find something else to whine about.. If that’s the complaint for a decade now.. maybe the critic just doesn’t like the basketball part.. the part that’s on the floor. If they’d just watch the freaking game instead.. they’d see the emerging stars that are healthy, and not factoring in to their ignorant data sets, because they’re not considered “stars” in the echo chambers. Silver is a sucker for falling for the debate, and engaging in it. And defending back with similarly ignorant statistics.
He needs to respond more like “if you don’t feel the NBA stars are available enough… or if you’re not entertained by what these teams is putting on the floor.. there are other less strenuous sports out there, such as golf, with very high star availability rates. NBA basketball however is the best product in the world, and our professionals exert the highest levels of strain and impact on their bodies.. sacrificing for teams, fans, and family. Our players will continue taking those risks, sometimes at a cost to their own health. Where unfortunate injury circumstances do exist, our employees long term health and availability is a priority we feel is in the best interest for all of us.”
Anything else, just change the conversation, Silver.. You don’t need to engage and give life to negative or bad press. You need to make good press. Do something man.. improve something. Not a cash grab tournament to generate more cash for millionaires.. Improve something within the lines of the court. The replay system. The reffing issues. Or maybe do something great with all those extra mils in tax dollars teams are paying.. and let us know what you’re doing with them.. Be the good press, blank-hole. Stop engaging with the bad. Stop engaging a once classy league down in the mud with these imaginary debates that only serve to cast shadows on your product.
Raises this question now… how are ways a comish term ends? When they decide to retire? Can Silver ever be voted out? How does it work?