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Toronto • Kevin Durant sat in a hotel ballroom this weekend, discussing his upcoming free agency. At a table to his left was Klay Thomspon. Straight ahead was Draymond Green. And to his right was the reigning MVP, Stephen Curry.
The Warriors have three All-Stars in Sunday's game and, come next summer, they could have the cap space to sign Durant or some other player to a max contract. That's the kind of situation commissioner Adam Silver said during his Sunday night press conference that the league might like to avoid, but also one it didn't plan for during the last round of collective bargaining.
"A dramatic increase in the cap, as we're going to see next year, is not something we modeled when we designed this collective bargaining agreement," Silver said. "We'd prefer a system where teams are managing for cap room, and we'd prefer a system in which stars are distributed throughout the league as opposed to congregating in one market. Whether that will happen with the additional cap room this summer is unclear to me."
The league's salary cap is expected to jump from about $67 million this season to nearly $90 million next, thanks to an influx of money from a new multi-billion dollar media deal between Turner, ABC and the NBA.
"The intention wasn't that, in this system, teams could sign without going above the tax that many max player contracts and that many All-Stars," Silver said. "… But we'll see what happens this summer. I mean, as I've said, there will be unintended consequences from all this additional cap room this summer, I just don't know what those consequences will be."
Silver also addressed several other issues facing the league:
• The NBA has seen 5.5 times as much Hack-A-Shaq this season compared to last and will look at possible rule changes for next season.
Silver, however, did expect the league to send out a memo this weekend warning that players jumping on another players' back to intentionally foul — as L.A.'s J.J. Redick to get Detroit's Andre Drummond on the free throw line earlier this month — could be ruled a flagrant foul.
• For the first time, the NBA went outside U.S. borders for All-Star weekend. Could an All-Star break across the pond be next?
"One thing we're very proud of as a league is that we've reduced the number of back-to-backs and reduced the number of four games out of five nights," Silver said. "So the problem is if we leave the country for all-star, it puts pressure on the rest of the schedule. So having an All-Star Game internationally has to be part of those larger discussions. It's something we'd love to do one day. It's not going to happen in the next two, three, four years, but I think down the road it could be a really exciting element for the NBA."
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