The collective negotiating agreement of the NBA 2023 has reduced the excitement of the free agency, since top players now sign extensions before they reach the market, while fewer quality players and teams with CAP remain available. Adam Silver was asked on Wednesday to assess the current system after two offseasons of sample size.
“I will never stand here and say, we have discovered it, we have the perfect system,” Silver began. “From the day we have done a collective negotiation, we started to see how teams react to it. We regularly talk to the Players Association to see if there are different aspects of this system that we should adjust.
“I understand, especially from the point of view of media, we would like to create more excitement for you all in the low season in terms of a hot free agent market. That is not my highest priority. To be honest, I learned this in the hard way. I understand the entertainment side of this.
“But in some cases I learned in the difficult way, the most important thing is the competition on the floor. I think we have now had seven different champions in seven years. We had fantastic play and finals last year. I understand that if you tighten the system for certain individual players, that means it will reduce the number of opportunities in others.
“But I think it’s in balance, it’s very effective. It has been effective in producing strong competition. It has been effective to ensure that smaller markets – I don’t like that moniker anymore, big versus small markets. I should really say that all markets are in a position where they can tell their fans.
Silver continued to the shocking trade of Los Angeles Lakers with the Dallas Mavericks for Luka Doncic prior to the Handelsdeadline of 2025 as an example of transactional excitement for the competition.
“We love the excitement,” Silver continued. “I think we still had a number of really interesting periods of free agencies and a number of fascinating transactions and signing sessions. Much more – when I stood here last year, people said, oh, that aspect of the NBA was dead because of a new collective employment contract, and then we saw some dramatic transactions that were completely unexpected last season.
“We will keep looking. On balance I would say that I am very happy with where we are, but we always keep looking at the system.”
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