Adam Silver is confident in the Grizzlies\u2019 staying power in Memphis but wouldn\u2019t mind an increased presence in Nashville.<\/p>\n
The NBA commissioner appeared on Barstool\u2019s \u201cPardon My Take\u201d podcast<\/a> on Wednesday and was asked about LeBron James\u2019 recent disparaging comments about Memphis<\/a> and the suggestion that the Grizzlies should move to the more populous Tennessee city of Nashville.<\/p>\n Silver said that, while Grizzlies governor Robert Pera has made it clear that he has \u201cno interest in moving the team out of Memphis,\u201d Silver does wish the Grizzlies could have more of a presence in the state\u2019s capital.<\/p>\n \u201cNashville is a city on the rise,\u201d Silver said. \u201cThere\u2019s incredible things happening there. If it were up to me, I\u2019d love for them to play a few games a year in Nashville and sort of be Tennessee\u2019s team to the extent they can.\u201d<\/p>\n While golfing on the \u201cBob Does Sports\u201d YouTube show earlier in April, James remarked that many NBA players dislike playing in Memphis. He also said he thinks the team should move to Nashville because of the city\u2019s more ingrained sporting culture, with several other professional teams already there, including the NHL\u2019s Predators and the NFL\u2019s Titans.<\/p>\n \u201cStaying at the f\u2014ing Hyatt at 41 years old, you think I want to do that s\u2014?\u201d James said. \u201cBeing in Memphis on a random-a\u2013 Thursday. I\u2019m not even the first guy to talk about this in the NBA. We\u2019re all like, \u2018You guys have to move.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cGo over to Nashville,\u201d the four-time MVP said. \u201c\u2026 They got everything.\u201d<\/p>\n Silver countered this stance on \u201cPardon My Take,\u201d saying he\u2019s gotten a different sense from players.<\/p>\n \u201cFirst of all, players I talk to all the time like playing in Memphis,\u201d the commissioner said. \u201cI\u2019ve never heard that issue of players not wanting to be in Memphis.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2026 Memphis has been a great market, historically for the NBA, amazing history in that city, amazing culture.\u201d<\/p>\n There is precedent for teams playing slightly out of market for greater regional activation. The San Antonio Spurs do so with nearby Austin, Texas. In 2025-26, the San Antonio Spurs played two regular-season home games at the Moody Center in Austin, Texas, as part of their I-35 Series.<\/p>\n However, the difference is that 77 miles separate the Spurs\u2019 traditional San Antonio home, the Frost Bank Center, from the Moody Center in Austin. Memphis\u2019 FedExForum sits 213 miles from Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, where the Predators play.<\/p>\n Regardless of desires to create a greater presence in the Tennessee capital, Silver still believes in Memphis as an NBA city going forward.<\/p>\n \u201cFrom my standpoint, there\u2019s no reason why the Memphis Grizzlies can\u2019t be successful,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The Grizzlies\u2019 lease for FedExForum, which opened in 2004, three years after the franchise relocated from Vancouver, ends after the 2028-29 season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Adam Silver is confident in the Grizzlies\u2019 staying power in Memphis but wouldn\u2019t mind an increased presence in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":624193,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,2331,5851,590,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-624192","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-culture","11":"tag-memphis-grizzlies","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=624192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624192\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/624193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=624192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=624192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=624192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}