Hard work has always been important for the Commissioner\u2019s success in life and finds that his players also resonate with this as \u201cwhat differentiates the great ones is how hard\u201d they work.<\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t think of a star player in this league that\u2019s not trying to out-work\u201d someone else he said, noting players such as LeBron James, Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant who embody his philosophy.<\/span><\/p>\n Silver was first introduced to the game at a young age when his father took him to see the Knicks play at Madison Square Garden and his passion for the sport grew when he attended Duke University. He turned his love for basketball into a career which has placed him at the forefront of sports. In his role as NBA Commissioner, Silver is faced with challenges from the professional to college levels and challenges facing the future of the NBA. He acknowledges that \u201cthings are changing at a much faster pace\u201d than when he first entered the league, but looks to steer the sport in the right direction.<\/p>\n Silver recounted these stories, experiences and his vision of the league in a discussion with Seton Hall University\u2019s Director of the Center for Sport Management Charles Grantham at the college\u2019s annual Sports Business and Media Ethics Symposium<\/a> on April 2. The Commissioner was the event\u2019s keynote speaker while other panels throughout the day covered amateurism to sports gambling and concluded with a one-on-one conversation between ESPN\u2019s Bob Ley and Stephen A. Smith.<\/p>\n Writing outreach letters to Stern in the 1980s asking for advice was the beginning of Silver\u2019s relationship with the former commissioner, and quite simply, Grantham said the reason why Silver came to Seton Hall was because of relationships.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve known Adam for 30 years or more. I\u2019ve known him since the middle [to] late 80s so we\u2019ve had a working and professional relationship for some time while I was with the players union for 20 years,\u201d Grantham said.<\/p>\n In his conversation with Silver, the Commissioner spoke about a new endeavor, the Basketball Africa League which is a \u201ccollaboration between the NBA and the sport\u2019s global governing body FIBA<\/a>.\u201d Silver sees this project as an economic opportunity for Africa as \u201cthe African leaders are trying to embrace sports industry.\u201d<\/p>\n With 35 players in the NBA born in Africa and about 55 different countries represented in the league, Grantham said that the NBA \u201cis only trying to continue to maintain that worldwide demand\u201d by growing internationally.<\/p>\n \u201cOnce we entered the Olympics in \u201892 with the Dream Team<\/a>, our exposure has expanded worldwide and it brought us players from other parts of the world and [from] other countries,\u201d Grantham said. \u201cSo the idea that we\u2019re now shifting to Africa only suggest that there\u2019s a demand there and there\u2019s a lot of potential talent in Africa as well.\u201d<\/p>\n New talent can be found across the world, in the top college basketball programs or even at the high school level. In a report by the Chicago Tribune in February 2019, the NBA and the National Basketball Players Association \u201care continuing to move forward on plans to eliminate the \u2018one-and-done\u2019 rule in college basketball<\/a>.\u201d Silver initially wanted to raise the minimum age to play in the league from 19 to 20 years old when he was first appointed commissioner, but said on Tuesday that the nature of college basketball has changed and it would be better to allow these young people to play at the professional level.<\/p>\n \u201cThe easiest solution would be for [the NBA] to have the draft and to have everybody [who meets the age requirements be] eligible,\u201d Grantham said. \u201cYou either draft them or you don\u2019t and if they\u2019re not drafted, they should go back to college to play.\u201d<\/p>\n However, from the perspective of a top-tier college basketball program, Grantham sees the appeal of retaining players in its system and the importance of the \u201cone-and-done\u201d for colleges.<\/p>\n \u201cIt boils down to the idea that both professional and college sports would like to control that content because these kids represent content which has a value to the broadcasters,\u201d Grantham said. \u201cSo if I could keep a young person like Zion [Williamson] in school for four years, what does that do for my content if I\u2019m a college? It makes my content more valuable and they pay more money.\u201d<\/p>\n According to Silver, the league will spend about $8 billion this season in creating a basketball product for consumers. In this rapidly changing sports landscape which Silver noted earlier in his discussion with Grantham, \u201cthings are moving at a much faster pace.\u201d One of those things is the growing industry of sports betting as Silver said that it has gone from simple measures such as wins and losses and point spreads to extensive in-game betting as \u201cevery bet is like the Super Bowl.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/sportsreporting\/files\/2019\/04\/curry-silver-2-299x210.jpg\")
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