BOSTON – Mike Gorman, the voice of the Celtics for Comcast SportsNet New England, recently sat down for a conversation with NBA commissioner Adam Silver.
The interview touched on a wide array of topics which can be seen in its entirety tonight on Celtics Insider which begins at 6:30 p.m.
Here are some of the highlights from the interview:
SPORTS BETTING
AS: “I think one, to your point I feel I’m being a realist. It’s happening in a massive way. Number two, ultimately in terms of protecting the integrity of this league. To the extent … it’s more transparent. The information gets collected in a legal manner. That it can be regulated and monitored. Ultimately we’re going to be in a much better position to protect the integrity of the game that God forbid there be any foul play around the games and the best way to monitor those kinds of things are through modern day analytics in a same way Las Vegas does.”
NBA LOTTERY SYSTEM
AS: “The lottery system does need to be changed over time. Although I will say that I think we changed it five times since I’ve been at the league office and it goes to show just how difficult it is and it tells how smart our teams and general managers are because they’re constantly looking for ways to beat it and I understand that. Now from a league standpoint I’m more concerned with perception right now than in my mind the reality.”
BRAD STEVENS
AS: “My initial impressions are that he’s one of the best young coaches in the league. There’s no doubt about it and may be one of the best young coaches to ever come into this league.”
LEAGUE EXPANSION OVERSEAS
AS: “I used to think it was closer than it probably is and in part because there are so many variables. For example, 10 years ago (former NBA Commissioner) David Stern used to say and I was here at the time of course, was as soon as we had an arena infrastructure in Europe, the next step would be to bring an NBA team there. Of course what we didn’t predict was the major downturn in the European economy that has been stagnant for a long time now, especially in Southern Europe where we’re most popular.”
SCHEDULE CHANGES
“We’ve had the same 82-game schedule that we’ve had since the mid-60s so it’s not like we have a lot more games than we used to. At the same time it’s roughly the same number of dates. It’s just the math in terms of, you have a set number of dates, you get 82 games in, you play roughly 3.5 games a week. So can we do a better job with four games in five nights, can we do a better job with back-to-backs? Yes. Definitely I am very focused on four games out of five nights. I think we can dramatically reduce that for next season by doing a better job scheduling.”