Adam Silver is a forward thinking gentleman. The way he understands little things like making his media rounds on podcasts instead of terrestrial radio, or just television, shows his willingness to embrace the new age. On The Lowe Post, Silver discussed the possibilities of adding a 16th and 17th man to NBA rosters, raising the D-League salary which can be as low as $18,000 per year, and adding another round to the NBA Draft.
The NBA wasn’t always 2 rounds, The Evolution of The Draft & Lottery page at NBA.com explains:
“In the early years of the draft, teams would select players until they ran out of prospects. The 1960 draft went 21 rounds. By 1974, it had stabilized to 10 rounds, which held up until 1985, when the draft was shortened to seven rounds. By agreement with the National Basketball Players’ Association, the drafts from 1989 onward have been limited to two rounds, which gives undrafted players the chance to try out for any team.”
Silver, who is a student of the game, is aware of that and gave his reasoning. CBS Sports had the quote:
“This notion of adding additional rounds in the draft [is] very interesting to me because, first from a player standpoint, you’d have potentially another 30 guys or more who are drafted by NBA teams, but then again you’d have this much greater incentive for an NBA team to care about that player and want to develop them and bring them along to play at NBA standard.”
The question would be what is better for the player- to be able to choose his own team or have the team he is on care more about developing him from a younger age? There are a lot of variables, but I’m sure this will be a subject when the owners and players meet to discuss the next collective bargaining agreement.