NBA commissioner Adam Silver: Caitlin Clark attention is ‘very healthy’ for WNBA

“Other than as a fan, obviously, it’s nothing new in basketball that there’s sort of ‘welcome to the league’ moments, especially for heralded rookies, but, of course, I want to see Caitlin treated fairly and appropriately in the league.

“I would say it seems like she can take care of herself. She’s a tough player. I think it may be lost on some people that are new to basketball, in terms of a little bit of controversy in the WNBA, what an incredible talent she is: two Final Fours, leading scorer in the history of college basketball. I look forward to watching her ongoing development in the league.

“I think ultimately this is very healthy for women’s basketball and the WNBA. It’s generating tremendous additional interest. In fairness to the other players and in fairness to Commissioner [Cathy] Engelbert, this didn’t just start this year. Certainly we’re seeing an acceleration of it with Caitlin, but many individual stars who came in this league in the last several years.”

“He apologized, and I accept that. I think that the way media works these days, when people are online for hours, they’re going to occasionally misstep. I think what’s important is the context, their intention and sort of what they’re willing to say about having done that. I leave it to ESPN to make their own personnel decisions about the consequences of things like that. But I accept sort of in a free society, where there’s a lot of conversation, a lot of dialogue, and I think it’s for the WNBA, of course, it’s going to be a two-edged sword.”

There are clearly markets out there that are very interested and will run through a process.

But I actually am looking forward to that. I think that the league, it’s not preordained that we will expand this time, but I know there’s an enormous amount of interest out there. And to me, yes, there are wealthy individuals, institutions that would like to invest and buy NBA teams, but I think it’s on the league to look holistically because there is the dilution, of course.

Let’s say we expand by two teams. What does that mean for talent? I feel great about where the talent is right now in the league, but those players have to come from somewhere. If you add two teams, how does it work geographically? What will it mean for growing the game?

At some point, we’d like to look outside the United States, in addition to Canada. This may not be the right moment to do that, but I’m thinking long term, as well.”