Adam Silver has no control of the NBA, and players and coaches are rampaging—doing and saying anything and everything they want. Or at least, that is what critic and commentator Jason Whitlock thinks.
In one of the recent episodes of “Fearless,” where he discussed the NBA decline in viewership and interest, Whitclokc cited the “lack of leadership” from commissioner Adam Silver, and how this leads to players having “total control” of how the league would work.
“Lack of leadership from Adam Silver and everybody else,” Whitlock said, when talking about the potential reason why the NBA is seeing the decline it’s experiencing now. “Look, he may be leading them right where they want to go, maybe they want to be a globalist league, maybe they wanted the league to take a dump on America but the lack of leadership from Adam Silver is astounding.”
Whitlcok drove the point that instead of the players having respect towards Silver, it’s the commissioner who appears to “fear” the players.
“Players have total control,” he added. “He’s afraid of the players. [He] won’t stand up to them. Players can do anything. If Russell Westbrook wants to talk crazy to fans, if he wants to call fans racist and make up claims, ‘oh they called me this word or that word,’ ‘oh we got to protect the players someone yelled something at them.’”
Players, Coaches “Disrespecting” Adam Silver for Making Left-Leaning Statements
Analysts and commentators calling out NBA commissioner Adam Silver is no longer a new thing. In an episode of the PBD Podcast, entrepreneur and host Patrick Bet-David called the commissioner out for allowing big names from the league, from the players down to the coaches, to use the league as a platform to express their political opinions.
In particular, Bet-David was referring to the recent statements of San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich, who called president-elect Donald Trump a “small man” and a “nobody” in a post-game presscon.
“You want me to hear this b******t? Get the f*** out, no we’re not watching this,” Bet-David said. “Adam Silver, it’s on you. I put it on you, I put it on you for walking on eggshells around guys like LeBron, walking on eggshells around guys like Steve Kerr. They don’t respect you, Adam Silver. They don’t look at you as a commissioner.”
“David Stern was not just a lawyer, he was not just a commissioner, but he was a leader, you are not a leader, Adam. You’re a nice guy who’s afraid to put his foot down and fix this.”
Adam Silver has acknowledged the decline in NBA viewership in recent interviews, but cited sturgeon social media presence as an asset for the league.
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