Speaking on European soil Thursday in the midst of a weeklong celebration around a new European star in Victor Wembanyama, NBA commissioner Adam Silver made clear he has serious interest in an American-led invasion of the continent’s basketball business.
For the past year, the NBA league office has been investigating the concept of starting a new standalone European league separate from the NBA. In his most expansive commentary on the matter, Silver made it clear he believes the current top league, the 18-team Euroleague, is leaving money and growth on the table, and the NBA sees an opportunity to move in.
“While Europe continues to develop some of the very best players in the world — many of our most recent MVPs, of course, are European — we think that the commercial opportunity has not kept pace with the growth of the game,” Silver said before the San Antonio Spurs played the Indiana Pacers in the first of two games at Paris’ Accor Arena.
“And what we do at the NBA is we run leagues. We, of course, run the WNBA, we have the [Basketball Africa League], we have the G League, we have a 2K video league. So we operate five different leagues and we think it’s an expertise we have. And so we are looking very closely to see if there’s an opportunity to professionalize the game to another level here to create a larger commercial opportunity.”