Denver Gazette beat writer Vinny Benedetto takes you around the NBA and inside the Nuggets locker room:<\/p>\n
NBA Insider<\/p>\n
One expansion movement seems to have a little more steam than the other.<\/p>\n
For the last five or so years, most expansion talk has been domestic with Las Vegas and Seattle being the most likely new markets. That doesn\u2019t appear as imminent as it was prior to the new collective bargaining agreement and media-rights deals.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fact is (there\u2019s) no new news to report today on domestic expansion, but it\u2019s something we continue to look at. We did discuss it at the board meeting. I think that we\u2019ve spent a fair amount of time on the economic models around expansion. We\u2019ve gotten into more of, I\u2019d say, a deeper dive than when I last addressed the media on it. Certainly now that we know what our media contracts are. That helps in doing the math, at least over the next decade,\u201d NBA commissioner Adam Silver said last week at his annual press conference following a Board of Governors meeting.<\/p>\n
\u201cPart of the difficulty in potentially assessing it is a sense of long-term value of the league, and a little bit maybe it\u2019s a high-class problem. But as with some of the recent jumps in franchise valuations, that sort of creates some confusion in the marketplace about how you might even price an expansion franchise. So I\u2019ll only say it\u2019s something that we continue to actively look at.\u201d<\/p>\n
Expanding the NBA\u2019s footprint into Europe sounded like it might move a little faster, though Silver maintained he sees those as independent ventures that would not impact the other. A league full of European teams comes with its own complications. Some countries have well-established leagues with no shortage of name-brand recognition thanks to the soccer clubs that exist under the same umbrella \u2013 think Barcelona and Real Madrid in Spain, Greek\u2019s Olympiacos and Panathinaikos and Bayern Munich in Germany. It\u2019s not the same in England where some of the most popular soccer clubs exist without a basketball squad. It\u2019s additionally complicated because European clubs have existed without any sort of salary cap.<\/p>\n
\u201cAdding teams to an existing league where you have, from a national standpoint at least, a fixed pie of revenue, is very different than looking at an opportunity in Europe where it\u2019s a clean slate. While there is an existing operation there, it\u2019s sort of a greenfield in terms of what the opportunity might be,\u201d Silver said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut to the extent anyone has taken from me a suggestion that Europe is more a priority than potential expansion in the U.S., it\u2019s not the case. I view it as two independent work streams here.\u201d<\/p>\n
What I\u2019m Thinking<\/p>\n
It sounds like the NBA is planning for regional sports networks to be a thing of the past.<\/p>\n
The commissioner spoke about the league\u2019s new and existing media partners. ESPN will continue to broadcast games, but Amazon and NBC are joining the party.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was great to see the three partners together. They talked about ways in which they\u2019re going to seek to elevate the game this season, ways they\u2019re going to market it,\u201d Silver said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe talked with them and among our owners on issues around streaming, the opportunities that present for our league over time to customize the telecast to do a better job engaging with our fans. There was a bit of a discussion around local television as well. Obviously, we\u2019re going through a transition. Many of our regional sports networks have just come out of bankruptcy, and fair to say enormous disruption there. We\u2019re thinking about the future when it comes to how we\u2019re going to present the games locally to our fans.\u201d<\/p>\n
Streaming is the future, but there is concern over cost. For fans to watch every one of their team\u2019s games, they will likely need Amazon Prime, Peacock and traditional cable or access to ESPN\u2019s streaming platform. If Silver really wanted to take care of the fans who were interested in watching most if not all their team\u2019s games, he would get ahead of what\u2019s to come and remove blackout restrictions on League Pass. Contracts are contracts, but it\u2019s never made much sense that a Chicago transplant in Denver can watch the Bulls play without issue, while Nuggets fans in Denver have multiple hoops to jump through to watch the home team. It\u2019s an issue that doesn\u2019t appear to be going away anytime soon.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we\u2019ve all had that experience where you\u2019re going to Google to find the game you want to watch because the world has changed it\u2019s not just automatically in the place you thought it would be. But ultimately, I\u2019ll talk about it in terms of reach and how you reach your consumers. It\u2019s interesting because of the disruption in the regional sports network business. I never would have predicted this was coming 10 years ago, but a lot of our local games are moving back to broadcast television. In fact, we have more games on broadcast television locally than we\u2019ve had anytime in recent history,\u201d Silver said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re continuing to look at it. But the ultimate answer is we think a lot about it. We know where we have mass appeal. On a global basis, we\u2019re literally reaching billions of people. We don\u2019t want to disenfranchise people by working with partners that are creating price points that make it inaccessible to them.\u201d<\/p>\n
What I\u2019m Following<\/p>\n
\u2022 The Nuggets are reportedly bringing more size to training camp. Moses Brown, a 7-foot-2 center, and the Nuggets reached a deal, according to HoopsHype. The 25-year-old played in 13 NBA games last season with Indiana and Dallas but spent most of the season in the G League. Signing guys like Brown and Kessler Edwards to training-camp deals helps the Nuggets reroute them to their G League affiliate.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Fan favorite turned foe Bones Hyland is sticking stateside. There were reports that Hyland had been courted by some European powers, but the Timberwolves front office \u2013 led by Tim Connelly, the man who drafted Bones in Denver – offered Hyland what appears to be a minimum salary to stick in the NBA.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Dennis Schroder continues to use international competition to bolster his case as a future hall of famer. The point guard produced in the clutch, as Germany beat Turkey, 88-83, in the EuroBasket championship game. Schroder was named the tournament\u2019s most valuable player, while Slovenia\u2019s Luka Doncic, Greece\u2019s Giannis Antetokounmo, Turkey\u2019s Alperen Sengun and Germany\u2019s Franz Wagner rounded out the tournament\u2019s All-Star Five. Greece beat Finland in the third-place game.<\/p>\n
What They\u2019re Saying<\/p>\n
The most popular talking point at Silver\u2019s press conference was, of course, the league\u2019s ongoing investigation into Kawhi Leonard\u2019s reported $28 million endorsement deal with Aspiration. Silver said he had never heard of the company or its dealings with Leonard until Pablo Torre\u2019s podcast on the matter was published. Here\u2019s Silver\u2019s most interesting comments on the league\u2019s ongoing investigation that\u2019s being handled by a New York law firm.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe burden is on the league if we\u2019re going to discipline a team, an owner, a player or any constituent members of the league,\u201d Silver said. \u201cI think as with any process that requires a fundamental sense of fairness, the burden should be on the party that is, in essence, bringing those charges.\u201d<\/p>\n
The commissioner spoke about his powers should the investigation conclude the Clippers deserve to be punished.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy powers are very broad,\u201d Silver said. \u201cFull range of financial penalties, (forfeited) draft picks, suspensions, et cetera, I have very broad powers in these situations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Silver didn\u2019t seem interested in policing which teams can sign agreements with which players, noting it makes more sense for certain companies to work with players in their home markets. He does feel like the league has gotten better at making things fairer than when he first started working for the league.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have made progress there. I think that there\u2019s enormous stigma in this league around any sort of cheating or any lack of fair play. I think also the results we\u2019re seeing, again, from 2019 to now \u2026 seven different champions. I think there is the sense around the league that there\u2019s no league bias toward particular markets,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat used to be, in my early days in the league, that was conventional wisdom. The league had to have this team or had to have this big market. This was the only way the league was going to be successful. We had some of our best ratings in years when two of our smaller markets, Indianapolis and Oklahoma City, competed in the Finals. \u2026 I\u2019m an NFL fan. When Pittsburgh plays Green Bay in the Super Bowl, it\u2019s not billed as a small-market Super Bowl. It\u2019s two storied teams. That\u2019s where we\u2019d like to get as the NBA, that it\u2019s not a function of market size or even market attractiveness necessarily. In order to do that, you have to have a fair set of rules that people think, that the community thinks are going to be enforced without any bias and in a full and fair way by the league office.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Denver Gazette beat writer Vinny Benedetto takes you around the NBA and inside the Nuggets locker room: NBA…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":159897,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,99],"class_list":["post-159896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159896\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}