The NBA Finals will tip off tonight in Toronto as the Raptors make their first ever appearance against the Warriors, who are seeking a three-peat in their fifth consecutive trip to the championship series.
It’s been nearly a full week without playoff basketball and the return of actual NBA games is a welcome reprieve from the discourse surrounding the league that’s gone on for the last five days. In that time, the Lakers took center stage once again for all the wrong reasons as an ESPN story dropped on Tuesday detailing even more internal dysfunction in Los Angeles.
The bombshells from that story, and the subsequent fallout, have been the lead topic of conversation around the league, which has been a bit frustrating for some given there’s still a whole championship to figure out over the next week-plus. Adam Silver was mentioned in that story, as Rich Paul complained to him about Luke Walton being the coach in L.A. in a brief conversation at a restaurant, which Silver confirmed as having happened. However, all the talk about the Lakers has been a bit exhausting, and Silver joked to Chris Haynes on the Posted Up podcast on Yahoo that ESPN has become the Lakers’ personal television channel.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver came with the jokes when asked about potential new start times for west coast teams because LeBron James is now a Laker. A brotha almost fell out his chair.
NEW POSTED UP W/ HAYNES POD
🎥: https://t.co/yGCB65PApk
🎙️: https://t.co/9tavmRMnvj pic.twitter.com/fEoXcIMzUL— Chris Haynes (@ChrisBHaynes) May 30, 2019
It’s a very funny one-liner from Silver, made even more hilarious given ESPN and ABC are the league’s chief television partner (along with TNT) and are the network carrying Finals games. It might be a purposeful jab from the commish to let ESPN know he’d like to see a little less of the Lakers soap opera playing out on the channel that will have the Finals when there’s actual game things to discuss.
Still, Silver has to know deep down that it’s all good for the league, even if he’d never admit having a flagship franchise being a tire fire as a positive. The NBA has a ways to go to reach the popularity of the NFL, and likely never truly will, but one thing that’s helping them close down that gap has been the year-long news cycle they’ve created (which the NFL has mastered) and the off court stories driving interest, at times as much as what’s happening on the floor. That can be upsetting to some, but it’s the reality of today.
