NBA commissioner David Stern and deputy commissioner Adam Silver spoke Wednesday about a number of on- and off-court issues, including the Summer Olympics, potential rule changes, and the upcoming hearing on Bird rights and waiver claims (link via ESPN.com). Let's round up a few of the highlights from Stern and Silver….
- The 2012 London Olympics are the last summer games for which Stern and the Association are committed to sending NBA veterans to compete. That stance will be reconsidered before 2016, as the league will look into saving NBA vets for the world basketball championships, and sending 23-and-under players to the Olympics.
- Silver on the Olympic issue: "Mark Cuban [and] other owners have raised repeatedly the issue of our players playing in essence year round when you add the Olympics to our newly renamed world championship of basketball to our World Cup of Basketball. So when you have the Olympics, the World Cup of Basketball, we are taking a very close look at whether it makes sense from an NBA standpoint and a global basketball standpoint for the top players to be playing at that level on a year round basis, and somewhere (every) summer."
- Stern wants to propose a number of potential rule changes to the NBA's new competition committee, including the elimination of defensive interference. The commissioner also hopes to crack down on flopping and to make all flagrant fouls reviewable.
- Stern is confident that an arbitrator will uphold the Bird rights rule that the union is fighting in a June 13th hearing: "We believe that the position that we are espousing here is the one that the contract says is the one and that the arbitrator will confirm."
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