Adam Silver Says NBA Championship Teams Boycotting a Trump White House Is a 'Lost Opportunity'

NBA commissioner Adam Silver believes championship teams should use the opportunity to approach Trump about what they feel should change in the country.

Not Available Lead
Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

Not Available Lead

With less than one month until the inauguration of Donald Trump, the question remains how many NBA players will offer a real-world version of the #NotMyPresident hashtag by boycotting their visit to the White House after winning the 2017 NBA Finals. 

NBA brass is already thinking about how to deal with this question. In an interview with The Undefeated on Sunday, league commissioner Adam Silver spoke about why he feels championship teams should not boycott the White House. He believes missing a trip to the White House would be a "lost opportunity" that many citizens normally don't get to confront Trump.

Silver's statement on the topic is below:

“To me, if a player were to choose not to go to the White House, whether they were choosing not to go to the current White House or a future White House, my response would be: ‘That’s a lost opportunity,’” Silver said. “Because that’s an opportunity that most citizens who have a political point of view would kill for — the opportunity to directly tell the president of the United States how they feel about an issue. Now, if the president were to say, ‘I have no interest in what members of the NBA think about an issue,’ that might surprise me and I might have a different response. The institution is bigger than any one man, whether that man be President Obama or President Trump. Ultimately players have to make their own decisions. But if they were seeking my counsel, my counsel would be that they should go to the White House if offered the opportunity."

Silver said that, boycott or no, he felt the league had an "obligation" to engage with issues of importance to African-Americans. 

“I do feel a particular obligation to focus on the African-American community in that we have a league that is roughly 75 percent African-American,” Silver said. “And I feel part of the obligation comes from the history of this league that I’ve inherited.”

Latest in Sports