Adam Silver Says He Wasn't 'Deadly Serious' About NBA Implementing Relegation
NBA commissioner Adam Silver further pushed back against the concept of adopting a European soccer-style relegation system, telling ESPN's Malika Andrews on Monday, "I can't say I was deadly serious" (h/t Marc Stein) when he said the league had considered such an idea.
Over the weekend, during a meeting with Phoenix Suns employees, Silver said the league had kicked around the idea of relegation as a way to combat teams tanking for better draft positioning, according to ESPN's Baxter Holmes.
The idea would be that the NBA's worst two teams were relegated to the G League each season, while the G League's two best franchises were promoted into the NBA each year.
But during those remarks, Silver said such a system would be "destabilizing" for the NBA.
"It would so disrupt our business model," he added. "And even if you took two teams up from the G League, they wouldn't be equipped to compete in the NBA."
He did say the league was concerned about tanking and would continue to adapt in an effort to disincentive the practice, however.
"It's something we have to watch for," Silver said. "A draft is, in principle, a good system. But I get it, especially when there is a sense that a once-in-a-generation player is coming along, like we have this year. ... Teams are smarter, they are creative, and they respond—we move, they move—so we're always looking to see whether there's yet a better system."
Relegation works in English football partly because a club system naturally formed around communities in the country, with 92 clubs in the top four divisions of the football pyramid and thousands of clubs in the country overall.
That means England has an established tier of leagues already in place, making it far easier for relegated clubs to remain financially stable. The NBA, meanwhile, has no real framework in place outside of the G League, which is essentially its version of a minor league system.
So no, relegation almost assuredly will never come to the NBA. It would instantly fix the tanking issue, but it would cause a whole new slew of issues for the league.
