ADAM SILVER: Good afternoon, everyone. Appreciate your being here.
Just concluded two days of meetings with our Board of Governors. Bunch of issues were on the agenda. First and foremost, I think you all know at this point that the board voted to explore expansion in Las Vegas and Seattle. I'm excited about that opportunity.
We've had discussions with elected officials both in Las Vegas and Seattle, Nevada, the state of Washington. We have long history in both those markets, of course. We had a franchise in Seattle for over 40 years. We have a WNBA franchise in Seattle right now. There's an enormous amount of passion for NBA and WNBA basketball in Las Vegas. We have a WNBA team in Las Vegas. Been there for several years now with great success.
I used to joke with both mayors Goodman, Oscar and Carolyn, it was as if we had a franchise in Las Vegas already given our Summer League, given that we occupy that two-week-plus period in July. It's become a major place of operation for the league. We've had multiple USA Basketball training camps there, as well.
I think two markets with deep basketball roots and deep connections to the NBA. We're excited to begin that process.
As we said in the press release, we are in the process of engaging an investment bank here in New York City called PJT. It's led by someone named Paul Taubman, who has been working with our league for decades. Actually was part of a process when we expanded to Canada roughly 30 years ago. He's very familiar with the league, as is his organization.
As I said, I anticipate enormous interest in both those opportunities.
Mark Tatum, our chief operating officer and deputy commissioner, is here today. He gave an update to our board on ongoing discussions in terms of creating a new league in Europe. There were no votes taken on that. It was more an update.
I think as many of you are aware, we are out in the market right now. We have different bankers working on that opportunity. JPMorgan and another organization known as Raine, two investment bankers who are soliciting interest. There are 12 separate markets we're looking at at the moment. Over a hundred organizations are currently involved in this process.
As I said, once again, there has been enormous enthusiasm. We have ongoing discussions with the existing basketball infrastructure in Europe, both through our federation, FIBA, the various country leagues and the EuroLeague.
Again, I think that basketball globally remains as number two sport, maybe fastest-growing sport in the world. Seems to be whether on the men's or women's side, we see tremendous interest in continuing to grow the game.
I would say virtually everything we covered at the board meeting was very positive. One topic not so positive, that's ongoing tanking issues in the league. We had a lengthy conversation about the issue.
I will say again, as I've said this before, this is not a new issue in this league. You can go back to the '60s, when coin tosses were used to determine who got the first pick, then in the '80s, when a draft lottery was created. That lottery has been modified four times since then. Does not seem to be operating optimally where we are now.
This may be an unusual year because of a perception of such a deep draft. I'd say that's combined with the advent of advanced analytics in all sports that teams are making sort of calculations in terms of opportunities and risks and rewards.
I understand where that incentive takes our teams. This meeting was not about pointing fingers at any team in particular. Again, I understand where the incentives are. We understand why it results in certain behavior.
I will say it seemed unanimous in the room that we needed to make a change and we needed to make a change for next season. Exactly what that change is, we're continuing to work on. No votes were taken today.
I think there's also unanimous agreement that we need to make this change in advance of the draft and free agency this year so all the teams understand the rules of the road going into next year. That means we will most likely have a special board meeting in May, which at that point we will vote on whatever modification we come up with.
We've been hard at work on this issue for several months now, led by Byron Spruell, Evan Wasch, James Jones in the league office. Of course, we have a Competition Committee. They've been working on that issue with us. We've been talking separately to our general managers.
I think this is a decision that needs to be made at the ownership level. It has business implications, has basketball implications, has integrity implications for the league. It's one that we take very seriously. We are going to fix it, full stop. I want to say that directly to our fans.
I recognize, too, it puts even fans in many cases in an odd position because it's become lore in many corners of the league that the worst place to be is a middle-of-the-road team. I don't necessarily agree with that.
I think even teams that are trying hard to compete with the rosters they have in many cases are being told by their fans that they're better off being bad or somehow manipulating the system to be worse than maybe they really are. That puts enormous pressure on our teams.
As I said, incentives need to be fixed. We will fix them. I'm looking forward to that.
Lastly, there was a discussion around the WNBA. The NBA proper owns over 40% of the WNBA. When you take the various team interests, WNBA team interests that are represented by NBA owners, close to probably 80% of the league, of the WNBA, is owned by NBA interests.
There's great interest in the league. People were extremely happy about the fact that the collective bargaining situation was resolved in time to save training camp and free agency and the season. We, of course, have two expansion teams joining us.
We talked about how that process is going, the benefits to operating these two leagues in parallel. There are things that are done differently, things that are done collectively.
I think that what came out of the room was, again, people were very pleased with where we came out on the WNBA side.
I've talked to many players directly, read the reports coming out of collective bargaining. I'm really pleased that both sides feel that it's a fair outcome. I think that's very important when you go through a process like that.
With that, happy to answer any questions.
Q. On expansion. Can you share if there were any concerns? You've talked about this, it is a complicated thing, selling equity in the league. We all understand that. Was there any concern that owners expressed? To that end, I know it just happened, but what's a logical timeline? You probably won't commit to one; I get that. What are the logical next steps and what are the hopes?
ADAM SILVER: There weren't concerns. I will say in a way we're in a good situation because there are some owners who felt that we just frankly don't need to expand. They didn't necessarily see concern with going forward. They felt we were in a very solid place with the 30-team league we have now.
I think Seattle and Las Vegas, in terms of their history and support of NBA basketball, are unique in terms of available markets in the U.S. right now. No knock on any other markets. Those are just the markets we're focused on.
I think there was a discussion about, of course, dilution economically and dilution talent-wise. There was a presentation by Paul Taubman and others at the league office about what the implications are.
Always a reminder, when you expand, you're selling equity in the existing league. For example, if partners share in 1/30th of national television revenue or 1/30th of international opportunities, if you expand by one team, it's 1/31st or 1/32nd with two teams. There is that straight economic analysis.
There's also potential dilution of talent. If your goal as an NBA owner is ultimately to win a championship, no matter how well-managed your team is, if there's two more teams out there, you're presumably going to lose some talent to those teams. It's harder to compete to win a championship if there's 32 teams than if there's 30.
I wouldn't put that in the category of concern, more in the category of considerations. It's also why, just to make that distinction, we didn't announce today we're expanding. We're exploring expanding, meaning there's the economic implications of what the value of that franchise, or franchises, ultimately determined by the market. Then the league has to make an assessment whether it's then worth it to go forward at those valuations.
I think they care a lot about who their potential partner or partners might be. Then particular situations in each market, like what arena would we play in, what are plans, are people looking at other arenas. All of those are part of the consideration set.
The discussion today and in the meetings leading up to today went more to, All right, what are all the factors that we'll look at? Ultimately the view is, you could explore expansion more softly by just having conversations. But certainly it was my view and others that we owe it to this market to be more transparent and formal with our approach to that so everybody feels they have a fair shot. There is an investment banker, people at the league office working on this.
If you are interested, I'll say that to people who may be listening or watching, call the league office, PJT Partners directly in New York.
I just want to make sure everybody understands there's been no handshakes on the side, no commitments, no promises to anyone. This is a completely transparent process. Nothing is set in stone right now.
You asked me another part of the question.
Q. Timeline.
ADAM SILVER: Timeline.
As I've said before, our goal was in 2026 to resolve this issue one way or the other. My timeline, we weren't so specific with the board, is that we need to know by the end of this calendar year what it is we're doing. It may not be that every “I” is dotted, but that would be our goal this year.
Q. On the NBA Europe front. This week from the European leadership it transpired not just a willingness to come to the table, but really an opening to get a deal done with the NBA. I wonder if you feel the same and if the timeline stays the same with the potential start in October ’27.
ADAM SILVER: I do have that similar sense from the EuroLeague. Of course, we know leadership in the EuroLeague very well. Chus Bueno used to be a colleague of mine at the NBA for many years. For many who don't know, he's the recently installed head of the EuroLeague.
I think for the betterment of European basketball, the best outcome would be if we came together with the EuroLeague here and that we came up with a systematic approach to growing the game throughout Europe. That means complementing the country leagues, working together with the EuroLeague and working together with our federation, FIBA.
Q. Do you anticipate Cathy Engelbert to remain the WNBA commissioner beyond the 2026 season?
ADAM SILVER: We haven't had those discussions yet with the WNBA board. I would only say Cathy has done a fantastic job since she's come to the WNBA. Obviously, you could see just in the results.
I haven't had those discussions recently with Cathy, even in terms of her future plans, how long she wants to do this.
She had a storied career before she came to the WNBA as the CEO of Deloitte. I'd only say the results speak for themselves. I am very happy, I know ownership is very happy, with where things stand in the WNBA.
Q. We all know what happened 18 years ago. The past is prologue to this. Since the team moved, both Amazon and Microsoft are two of the wealthiest companies in the country. Amazon is a partner for you. Tens of thousands of people have moved to Seattle since the franchise left. What does the city of Seattle have to do to prove itself in this process? Do you expect multiple bidders whether in Seattle or Las Vegas?
ADAM SILVER: I do expect there will be multiple bidders.
I don't think it's anything specific the city of Seattle needs to do. We have business partners there. I travel there frequently. The Storm has had great success.
On top of that enormous growth with technology, I think it has more to do with who comes forward as the potential owner, understanding the arena situation, understanding the economics, because putting aside what somebody's willing to pay for the franchise, we want to make sure they're in a position to be successful, whether that means sharing a building with the hockey team, whatever arrangement is put forward.
That's what I meant before. When our team owners, on one hand they compete like crazy on the court, but then they're all partners. I think part of the issues we'll be looking at is, will we be putting a team in position to be successful in Seattle.
I see no reason standing here today why that shouldn't be the case, but we're going to work through this process.
Q. Keeping things in the Northwest. Looking at the Blazers ownership situation, I know it hasn't been approved yet, but what do you think about Tom Dundon as a prospective owner and just the long-term health of the Blazers in Portland?
ADAM SILVER: I'm just getting to know Tom. I've known him by reputation for a long time, not just through his ownership of the Carolina Hurricanes, but also through his other sports investments he's made.
He's a go-getter. He's got a great reputation as sort of leading a turnaround in the NHL. He certainly has enormous passion and spirit. He wants to be successful. He wants to be successful both as a businessman in Portland, and he wants to be successful with the team on the floor.
I also had an opportunity yesterday to meet the rest of his group, the rest of his ownership group. Similarly, you have some very successful people who are coming here.
I see no reason why he won't be successful in Portland. I think that he recognizes it's a unique opportunity.
Many different types of markets in the NBA. But when you have markets that are single-sport markets -- I should say we also have a WNBA team coming to Portland as well now. I think that makes whatever needs to happen in the building important, because you could have two major league basketball teams there. We need a state-of-the-art arena to play in.
I think there seems to be agreement, I was in the market recently, the Moda Center needs an upgrade. There's been a vote already to ensure that is going to happen. I think there are some other pieces that need to come together in the market to ensure that there is long-term support.
But I'm a big fan of the market. It was nice to be there. The support has been enthusiastic. Senator Wyden has gotten very involved, as well. We expect that there will be a vote shortly from our board.
Tom and his group were just interviewed yesterday. That's now the additional process. That should happen in short order. I think Tom is anxious and ready to go. Wants to build a championship franchise there.
Q. You mentioned some of these ownership groups. Magic Johnson's group reached out to me and expressed interest. What does having Magic Johnson added to the group add to a group's bid for an NBA team?
ADAM SILVER: Magic Johnson, one of our greatest players ever. Has had incredible success off the floor, as well. I have a strong personal relationship with him. He's beloved around the league. I know interest from Magic will be welcomed by the league office.
As I said, in some cases you have people who will be leading groups, and there's others that indicated they want to be part of ownership groups. That's what we'll now see as the process unfolds.
Q. You alluded to talent dilution earlier. What extent has the league already studied the impacts of talent dilution with regard to expansion and what those conclusions might have been, if you can share? More broadly, I think we all understand the financial reasons to expand. What is the basketball case for expanding, especially at a time when you are still grappling with tanking, a lot of bad teams? Expanding means almost by definition, if we can judge by the past, adding two more bad teams. What is the basketball case and the dilution study telling you?
ADAM SILVER: It's interesting, when you talk about tanking, what's confusing by definition about tanking is it's unclear how bad a team really is, especially when outcomes are being controlled in a way based on incentives to finish further down the standings.
Just back to the tanking discussion for a moment. One of the difficulties when trying to revise a new system is the team that finishes 30th, are they that much worse than the team that finishes 28th or 26th or 24th or 22nd, for that matter? I mean, it's my view that we have ample talent to field 32 competitive teams.
Just by one point of comparison, when we last had a two-team expansion roughly 30 years ago, to Canada, six percent of the players in the NBA were international. That's now 30 percent. Along the lines, we were talking earlier about basketball in Europe, the amount of talent coming out of there, I mean, out of the 30 percent of our players international, roughly half of them are from Europe. That's 15 percent of our players are European. Obviously, some of our very best players. Increasingly we have MVPs coming from outside the United States.
Tanking is a confusing one and something we study because it perverts the outcome. The very essence of tanking is, it's unclear what quality teams really have.
I'm not really worried about the ability to have 30 competitive teams. Does it make it that much more difficult for a team to win a championship? Yes. As opposed to the old days in the league, going way back, one of the things we talked about, in the first 65 years of this league, three teams won 60 percent of the championships. Now over the last [15] years, you've had I think 11 different teams have won championships. You've had seven different teams over the last seven years. There's much more parity than used to exist in the league.
Ultimately what people want, that's why tanking is so corrosive, people want to see competition. I'm a big fan of college basketball. I watch a lot of college games where there may be only one or two players on the floor that could legitimately play at the NBA level. It doesn't take away from my enjoyment of the game or even to me the quality of the competition on the floor. Ultimately what we're selling is great competition.
So it's something we're paying attention to.
I think back to that question before, were there any concerns, there was not a strong concern in the room that there wasn't sufficient talent. I don't want to say the conversation is unrelated to tanking. I think there was a sense in the room that the expansion process is multi-year. We hope to make a decision by the end of this year. At the earliest you'd have new teams coming into the league the '28-29 season. As I said, there was uniformity and the view that we must fix the tanking issue now.
I would say given the amount of growth in this game globally, you're very familiar with it, look whether it's the FIBA World Cup or the Olympic competition, from the old days the quality of the teams that were competing against the United States until now, basketball is played everywhere, there's talent everywhere.
I think partly because of digital media you can discover talent in ways you couldn't historically. There's hardly ever a diamond in the rough anymore. People are aware of where this talent is regardless of where they are on the planet.
Especially given we're looking at adding these teams in '28-29. If we move forward, I don't think there's going to be any problem with the quality of the competition.
Q. Was expansion fee brought up as part of the conversation with the owners today or an expected expansion fee? Do you believe the reports out there, something north of $7 billion, up to $10 billion, as an accurate range where the fee might be?
ADAM SILVER: The only discussion in the room was understanding the math around dilution in terms of projections and what's the direct reduction in existing revenues to teams if we were to expand beginning in '28-29. We did not discuss franchise value per se in these meetings.
Of course, certainly with our bankers we have a sense of where we think that value exists. At the end of the day the marketplace will determine that.
Q. You said earlier that you're going to fix tanking, full stop. You mentioned in your answer that you've changed the lottery rules as a league over the past 40 years several times. We're still in the same position we were in. You mentioned the incentives. Would you say as you're discussing this over the next month before the special meeting in May to address this, the only way to actually solve the problem actually this time will be to change the incentives to where winning is the thing that in some form is driving the lottery outcomes or else are we going to be in a similar situation again?
ADAM SILVER: A few things.
One is, I guess I want to be careful about what you may be suggesting or people may be hearing from me as a ''forever fix.'' The world changes, behavior changes. I don't necessarily think the changes we made over the last 40 years or so were necessarily wrong. I think in some cases they worked for a period of time.
Math is math. When we make those changes and change odds, you know exactly statistically where you're going to come out. What's changed is behavior around those odds. It may be as the value of franchises has gone up, as the analytics have gotten more sophisticated, as pressure has come from fan bases to engage in behavior that even team ownership or GMs are not proud of, that's where we find ourselves.
I think in sports or in life, there's a lot that's unpredictable. Having said all that, I think you could describe changes we've made or certainly the change we made since I've been commissioner, as a step change, incremental change, that we knew was not a dramatic change to the system.
As you recall, in fact, when I first became commissioner in 2014, there was a proposal that was put forward by the league office that received a majority of votes from the teams, but did not pass. I should mention, in order to make a change in the lottery system, it requires three quarters of the teams. I think where the tension exists and existed back then, and the reason we didn't make the change in 2014, is there is an aspect of team building that is called a genuine rebuild, rebuild with integrity.
The problem we're having these days is it's become almost impossible to distinguish between a tank and a rebuild. Dave Weiss, who is sitting here in front of me, who has been overseeing this process, yes, we fined two teams right before All-Star. That behavior I think rose to a level, and I think the teams understood, that required a response from the league office.
But there's such a subtlety to this, when incentives don't match. We're now into it with coaches' decisions on lineups and when players come in and out of the game. Injuries, doctors going back and forth with each other. Pain levels of players.
My sense is when I say 'fix now,' yes, we need to do something more extreme than we did with those incremental changes the last four times along.
I should leave open the fact that, again, in a sophisticated way talking to these incredible GMs who have such hard jobs, that a draft is one way to build a team, of course. There's free agency. Then there's trading.
There may be aspects of the CBA over time that we need to adjust as well. That's not something we can look at right now. The CBA has at least four more years to run, maybe three, then it goes longer, there's an opt-out.
I'm sure the Players Association has views, too, on things they'd want to do differently the next time we sit down.
So it may be the case we will do some things and then depending what happens in a new collective bargaining agreement, as we have years to think about some potential changes, there are different ways to build through free agency than exist now or trade rules.
I will say I really like where the league is right now. I'm sorry to have to talk about tanking because it takes away from the incredible competition we're seeing from roughly 20 teams in the league right now, going into a wide-open playoffs, so many different teams. Many media members in this league who cover the league are predicting outcomes. It's really exciting basketball.
What's so incredible about live sports at this level, I think it's why not just the NBA, but we're seeing a rising tide among all premium sports, is people have a hunger for this live, unscripted drama. Of course, the opposite of that is when there's a sense that both teams aren't out there trying to kill themselves to win a game.
As I said, we have to fix that problem.
I guess I should just not overstate something that you're going to be asking me a question in five years, saying, ‘You said this was a forever fix’.
If I'm the one standing at the podium, I want to make it clear that I recognize things may change also because there also may be changes that we see through collective bargaining or other changes to the system that may impact what we're doing now.
Certainly going into next season, the incentives will be completely different than they are now.
Q. There seems to be some disagreement up in Milwaukee about whether or not Giannis [Antetokounmpo] is healthy. Earlier this week the Players Association said he's healthy, he wants to play. Is the league investigating that situation? If not, why not?
ADAM SILVER: Prior to that press release from the Players Association, we were not aware there was an issue. We knew Giannis was injured. He was within the sort of usual period it was taking to come back from that injury. I was a bit surprised by that press release.
Yes, when our Players Association, our union, announces they see an issue, of course we'll look into it. So that's where it currently stands.
I believe they've already announced he's not playing in their game tonight, if that's true, since that announcement came out. I have not heard directly certainly from Giannis or the league hasn’t heard from Giannis to say that he feels he should be on the court right now. That's something we will look into.
Q. In past expansions, there occasionally have been multiple markets that expressed interest and publicly vied for consideration. Were there any other markets that were considered for this round? When and how did Las Vegas and Seattle emerge as the favorites?
ADAM SILVER: You know you've been covering the league for a long time when you start your question with 'in past expansions', it's been a while (smiling).
I would only say here that, as I said earlier, there's some other amazing markets out there that could potentially support NBA basketball. The focus this time around was on these two particular markets.
Again, I think because of our long-time history in Seattle, the fact that we have the Storm and the great success in Seattle. In Las Vegas 20 years plus Summer League there. Great success with WNBA Aces in Las Vegas. That's why we're focused on these markets at this time.
Q. A quick question on PJT. I know they're advising you in the process leading up to whether there is going to be a vote or not. Have they formally been brought on to run this process? We've seen a number of NBA teams go for three, four, five billion dollars. I wondered the math behind the potential numbers floating around, seven to ten billion and how you get there with the Celtics going for 6.1 and the Lakers going for 10.
ADAM SILVER: The answer to the first part of your question is, yes, PJT is now being formally engaged given that this resolution passed today.
I'm not going to speculate on prices. People could look at, obviously you said the Celtics sale. I don't think you mentioned the Lakers sale at 10 billion. The market will determine the value of this team, of these teams, then we will decide whether that makes sense to move forward.
But I anticipate there will be a robust interest.
Q. An expansion question. Maybe you'll let us sneak in a 65-game question. The presumption has been you're going down this road with expansion, working with PJT, making this public, that expansion will happen. Is there a chance that there is no expansion? Why would that occur?
ADAM SILVER: So, there's absolutely a chance expansion may not happen. That's why we were careful to say 'exploring the process'. It's also possible that we could expand to one market and not two, to two, or zero markets. That's sort of what's on the table right now.
As to why it might not happen, at least standing here today, there's nothing I see in the relatively short-term future of this league that would indicate in any way that there won't be enormous interest in those markets, and the board will continue to support moving forward. I should say at the right time. It will require three-quarters of the owners supporting it.
We wouldn't be moving into this step, and in fairness to parties that are interested, was one of the reasons we wanted to make this formal announcement because wherever those values land, it's an enormous undertaking. It's generally not just a single owner, it's a group, it requires financing, arena planning, et cetera.
Where the uncertainty to me lies is in issues outside of the league. There's enormous instability in the world at the moment. We may ultimately conclude for reasons completely out of our control that it's not the right time to expand, that it's something we should postpone and relook at at some later time. That's really what our caveat is.
I say again, in response to an earlier question, not at all because there's concern about it, but I think the league is in such a strong position right now, and there's such enormous belief in the future prospects of this league, that for the 30 teams, there was nobody in the room saying, I really want to expand right now because I could really use the money.
It's very much a strategic decision for this league. As I said, you're selling equity. Part of the issue when you're selling equity is you have to make predictions about future value. Virtually everyone in the room said, I'm a buyer, I'm not a seller.
The real reason to ultimately expand is if you see strategic benefit. That's why we're particularly focused on Las Vegas and Seattle. I see strong strategic reasons for both those markets.
Around the question from Portland before, I think the northwest of the United States as Tom Dundon comes in, we get a revamped Portland Trail Blazers, an upgraded arena. I love the rivalry that we had historically with Seattle. This isn't a reason to expand, but it makes Evan Wasch and our schedulers' lives easier if you have a team in Seattle along with Portland.
I think Las Vegas has very much become the entertainment capital of the United States, seemingly with an insatiable appetite for more sports. Again, we'll take a close look there. I mean, there's been certain economic factors that even have affected Las Vegas recently. That's part of what you have to look at, as well, over time.
Q. And then with the 65-game rule, the other NBPA statement yesterday was about Cade Cunningham and the 65-game rule. Is that something the league has thought about? Would it do that and negotiate with the players union about doing that before this current CBA runs out?
ADAM SILVER: In fairness to the Players Association, I would never say there's something we're not willing to talk to them about. I mean, things come up all the time on both sides.
I would only say take a step back. It's only the third year now that the 65-game rule has been put in effect. A few years ago when I was standing in front of all of you, you weren't asking me about tanking, you were asking me about load management. You were saying, What in the world are you going to do about the fact that star players aren't playing enough games?
We did a number of things. One of the things we did in agreement with the Players Association was to put in place a 65-game rule, to ensure to be eligible for MVP or All-NBA, All-Defensive, you needed to play those 65 games.
We always knew when there's a line you draw that somebody's going to fall on the other side of that line. It may feel unfair in that particular instance. Let's see what happens at the end of this year.
By the way, Cade Cunningham, he’s an incredible player and I'm sorry that he's injured. Can't wait to see him back on the floor.
Having said that, we also have to remember to the extent that one player is no longer eligible, some other player will then be All-NBA and will slot into that spot.
I'm not ready standing here to say I don't think it's working. I think it is working. I think if you look at the numbers, the pre-implementation of this rule, numbers were going in the wrong direction. I may have this a little bit off, I think the three years before we adopted this rule, almost a third of the All-NBA players had not played 80% of the games. That was a huge issue for the league. In the same way we're addressing tanking now, people said, What are you going to do about that?
So not surprisingly, same underlying thematic around tanking goes to player participation. Are the incentives aligned? There was a general agreement between us and the Players Association that we needed to do something about that. The result was to have this 65-game rule. Could it be 68? Could it be 62? That was the product of a negotiation.
I generally think it's worked. That along with the player participation policy, there is not nearly as much discussion about load management as there was, in part because the teams and players have responded. You see them on the floor now.
Now we have a separate issue we're dealing with in terms of tanking. We'll deal with that. And I get it, it's part of my job. There's always new issues.
But I'm not ready to say standing here today, that because there may be a sense of unfairness for one player, that that means the rule doesn't work.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports