{"id":926757,"date":"2026-10-13T15:14:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-13T15:14:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/926757\/"},"modified":"2026-10-13T15:14:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-13T15:14:10","slug":"adam-silver-talks-nba-europe-euroleague-prediction-markets-more","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/926757\/","title":{"rendered":"Adam Silver Talks NBA Europe, EuroLeague, Prediction Markets, More"},"content":{"rendered":"

Appearing on CNBC ahead of the first of two Mavericks\/Rockets games in Macao over the weekend, NBA commissioner Adam Silver expressed confidence that the NBA will work out an agreement to merge with the EuroLeague (video link<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Reporting last week indicated that EuroLeague shareholders turned down<\/a> the NBA\u2019s initial proposal for a merger, but the sense at the time was that those talks would continue. The belief is that the NBA, which has partnered with FIBA as it looks to establish its own European league, will either submit a new offer or the EuroLeague will make a counter-proposal of its own.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s like any negotiation, it\u2019s ongoing,\u201d Silver told CNBC\u2019s Contessa Brewer, who suggested that talks between the two sides had hit a \u201crough patch\u201d in the last week. \u201cI think it\u2019s too extreme to say it\u2019s a rough patch. We\u2019ve been going back and forth with the EuroLeague. \u2026 We\u2019re hoping we\u2019ll work something out with the EuroLeague. I think we will.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Brewer asked if the league office intends to move forward on plans for NBA Europe with or without the EuroLeague, Silver replied, \u201cYes, but we\u2019re going to get something worked out.\u201d<\/p>\n

The NBA commissioner also addressed a few other notable topics during a pair of interviews with Brewer on Friday and Sunday. Here are some of the highlights:<\/p>\n

On prediction markets such as Kalshi and Polymarket, and their impact on the NBA:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhether it\u2019s called a prediction market, whether it\u2019s sports betting, it\u2019s the same issues for our league and I think for all the leagues, there\u2019s issues around integrity, first and foremost. Then for us, it\u2019s a desire to capture data, so that we can regulate those markets when we see aberrational behavior \u2014 whether it\u2019s insider information or whatever else, we can detect it. So we want access to that data.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe also want control of the markets. That\u2019s particularly relevant in prediction markets, where currently they\u2019re taking trades on when a coach might get fired, odd behavior that you don\u2019t necessarily want people placing contracts on or betting on. \u2026 We want to have control over our intellectual property. We want to make sure we\u2019re protecting the integrity of our competition.\u201d<\/p>\n

On working with Wilson to develop a \u201csmart ball\u201d with a tracker embedded inside it:
(Video link<\/a>)<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re experimenting with putting a small chip in the ball that weighs roughly a gram. To put it in perspective, as I understand it, a ball weighs roughly 620 grams, which is roughly 1.4 pounds. So even though it\u2019s 1\/620th or so of the weight, we wanted to make sure that the players, who are so sophisticated and have bounced a million balls, wouldn\u2019t sense something was off. So we tested in the G League, we tested in Summer League, and we A\/B tested the ball with a chip, without a chip, and nobody could tell the difference, so that\u2019s a good sign.<\/p>\n

\u201c(There are) a few different applications. One is, in terms of officiating, we think it\u2019s an opportunity whereby any change in the spin of the ball, you can tell \u2013 for example \u2013 if a finger touched the ball when it\u2019s going out of bounds. For goaltending, you can tell if the arc changed in the shot.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there\u2019s also going to be other applications, ultimately for consumers. As you know, great shooters put spin on the ball and arc on the ball. So (with) the chip, you\u2019ll be able to graph \u2014 let\u2019s say, you take 500 shots, you\u2019ll then see the graph and you\u2019ll see the angle of the shots that went in and are more likely to go in, so you can adjust how to become a better player.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think you could see \u2013 as soon as next year \u2013 us using it for officiating in our games. I think the consumer application is a few years away, but it\u2019s a really exciting opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

On implementing player wearables for tracking\/data purposes:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe haven\u2019t come to an agreement yet with the Players Association about how to use them in games. I think there\u2019s a lot of sensitivity \u2013 particularly from the players\u2019 union \u2013 about how that data might be used. I guess, essentially, if you could see a player was slowing down or something like that, they\u2019re worried that that could get used in bargaining, and I get that. So I think we have to come to some agreement on exactly how the information is used, but it seems like everybody wants that information.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the players are in position right now where they\u2019re essentially wearing wearables 22 hours a day and the only time they\u2019re not wearing them is when they\u2019re playing in a game, so that can\u2019t make sense. So we\u2019ll work something out with them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Appearing on CNBC ahead of the first of two Mavericks\/Rockets games in Macao over the weekend, NBA commissioner…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":926758,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[7639,64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-926757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-adam-silver","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/926757","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=926757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/926757\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/926758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=926757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=926757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=926757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}