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Q&A: NBA commissioner Adam Silver

National Basketball Association commissioner Adam Silver addressed the role of sports in systematic social change during a panel onTuesday. Following the lecture, The Daily Princetonian sat down with Silver to discuss his career, race relations within the NBA and the future of basketball.

The Daily Princetonian: How did your love for basketball begin?

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Adam Silver: My love for basketball began as a boy growing up in Rye, N.Y. My father lived in New York City. I lived with my mother, and he had season tickets to the New York Knicks, and that was an activity I did with my father. In addition to being a fan of the Knicks, I played with my friends, you know, as a young boy, just at school and at the playground, and I loved the game.

DP: What has been the most challenging part of your job as commissioner?

AS: I think the most challenging part of my job is that there are a lot of conflicting interests sometimes, or competing interests, I should say. Teams may have varying opinions and different forces out there are pushing me in all kinds of directions. I think by nature, I try not to have to say no to people, but part of the job is saying no, and I think that makes me uncomfortable sometimes, because I’d like everybody who’s involved with the NBA to have a uniformly positive experience, but you know, I realize that I can’t please everybody all the time.

DP: What decision have you been most proud of that you’ve made so far in your time as commissioner?

AS: I'm very proud that I made Mark Tatum, who lives in Princeton, N.J., my deputy commissioner. He’s been outstanding.

DP: The NBA’s revenue has steadily increased throughout most of the past decade, and you saw the biggest year-to-year franchise value jump as of January 2015. What would you attribute this success to, and how do you plan to sustain it?

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AS: I attribute the success in revenue to the all-time popularity of the game and to the fantastic job that our players are doing on the court. The way to sustain it is to keep doing what we’re doing and growing the game not just in the United States, but globally as well.

DP: To what extent do you plan to try to incorporate more non-African Americans into the player composition of the NBA?

AS: The great thing about the NBA is that the composition of the players is decided by how they perform on the court, and we just let that take care of itself. There are certainly no quotas in the NBA. What you try to create is a system where the best players mostly are the ones who are rewarded with the best contracts and the most playing time. The last thing I would ever try to do is micromanage in any way the selection of players in our league.

DP: What have you seen as the effect of Linsanity, especially in the realm of race relations within the NBA?

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AS: I think what’s been so great about Linsanity is that [Jeremy Lin] personally has demonstrated to people that stereotypes are just that, and that you shouldn’t judge people based on their ethnicity or their background. And I think that when he originally came into the league, he would say the same thing as a college player — that people underestimated him because of his ethnicity. And I think he demonstrated, as I said in response to the last question, that ultimately those judgments should only be made based on performance on the court, and not based on race, ethnicity, nationality, background. It’s all about what you can do on the floor.

DP: So your ideal NBA would just be merit-based in terms of performance on the court.

AS: Yes, and I think no system is perfect. I think the great thing about major league sports in this country is that nothing could be more transparent in terms of seeing how players perform on the court. Teams generally want to win above all, and if for whatever reason they’re not putting their best players on the floor, the marketplace will quickly see just that, that somehow players are being rewarded for something other than merit. And so again, no system’s perfect, but I think we have as close to a meritocracy as any business I’m familiar with.

DP: Lastly, how do you plan to make basketball the number one sport in the world?

AS: Well, the way we’re going to grow this game is by continuing to work on a grassroots basis throughout the world. We have programs in China, in India, throughout the continent of Africa and everywhere else in the world to demonstrate to boys and girls what a wonderful game this is. And we know that if we can develop among young people a love for the game, they’re highly likely to be fans throughout their lives.