On February 1st of 2014, Adam Silver will officially take over for David Stern as NBA commissioner. Adam seems to be jumping right into business as well, as he recently revealed on a sports radio program that one of his first orders of business will be to take a closer look at if the NBA should get rid of divisions. No more Atlantic, Pacific, Central or any others moving forward; and while it seems crazy at first, Silver’s logic into it makes sense.
He makes the point that with how wide open the NBA is stating rivalries aren’t as based on location compared to the past, and eliminating divisions would open up scheduling just that much more. Instead of teams having to play a certain amount of times each year the NBA could break it down into more intriguing match-ups throughout the entire season. Nothing is in stone yet, but Silver did say he wants to put this on the table very soon to be talked about further.
Read his full comments after the jump.
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“As David said, the league is in such great shape. I mean, Steve (Kerr) and I were talking basketball the other night out in Brooklyn and [he] raised the same question with me about whether divisions have outlived their usefulness. One thing I have learned from David over all those years…one thing he taught me and all of my colleagues at the NBA is every day we should wake up and take a fresh look at everything we do. And I think divisions fall into that category. Obviously historically, based on geography in terms of weighted schedule and convenience of travel, the goal was to enhance rivalries and I’m not sure if that’s still what’s happening and so that’s something I’m sure that the competition committee, when it next meets, will be taking a fresh look at.”
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