Adam Silver continues to suggest the NBA is not interested in expansion at this time beyond their current slate of 30 franchises.

Seattle remains without an NBA team while potentially viable cities like Vancouver, Montreal, Las Vegas and Mexico City also loom. Silver was asked specifically before Game 1 of The Finals in Toronto about expansion generally and a second team in Canada specifically.

"My answer is, you know, and it’s the same as it’s been for other U.S. cities that have expressed interest, and that is that we are just not in expansion mode at the time," said Silver. "I mean, we’re flattered that some other Canadian cities have expressed interest, as some other U.S. cities have, but again nothing new and I’ve said this before, that we, meaning the NBA collectively, all our team owners, are very focused on creating the best possible competition among the 30 teams. And I’m sure inevitably at some point we’ll turn back to expansion, but it’s not on the agenda at this time."

Silver was then asked what could lead the NBA to be more amenable to expansion.

"At the end of the day from a league standpoint you’re in essence selling equity in your overall league, and you’re selling a portion of the growth opportunity outside of that market," said Silver. "You’re selling the growth opportunity in Africa, and I think what we would be looking at is whether if we’re expanding, not necessarily the short-term benefit of an expansion fee, but is it additive over the long-term? Is that franchise adding something to the footprint of the league that the 30 current teams don’t? So that’s in essence would be the analysis."

The NBA has six years remaining on their $24 billion national television contracts with Disney and Turner. The NBA is also aggressively expanding international and is beginning to earn real revenue overseas, particularly in China.

Silver is bullish on the state of the NBA.

“The sound you hear is me knocking on my wooden table,” Silver said. “It is our job to look around corners, but I think everything is going spectacularly right now.”

In this era of streaming, Silver believes the surge in entertainment options is both a challenge and an opportunity.

“The biggest challenge is also the greatest opportunity, in that people have more choices for entertainment than ever before,” said Silver.

The NBA had its second highest attendance ever this season, but national television ratings were down five percent.

The National Basketball Association (NBA) and the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) announced today an agreement to modify the time at which teams can begin negotiating with free agents. 

Teams and players will now be permitted to begin free agent negotiations at 6 p.m. ET on June 30 – six hours earlier than the previous start time of 12:01 a.m. ET on July 1. 

By league rules, teams also will be permitted to communicate with free agents or their representatives beginning at 6 p.m. ET on June 29 solely for the purpose of scheduling a meeting to take place at or after 6 p.m. ET on June 30.

The NBA's supermax contract, introduced in the latest collective bargaining agreement, hasn't played out exactly the way owners and players expected.

Stephen Curry, James Harden, Russell Westbrook and John Wall are the only four players who have signed a supermax. It has worked out well for Curry and Harden along with their respective teams. The situation for Westbrook and the Thunder is a bit more mixed, while the Wall extension has been disastrous for the Wizards due to his injuries.

Damian Lillard is expected to sign a supermax this offseason. Bradley Beal and the Wizards appear to still be uncertain on both sides on a supermax, should he qualify.

The Kings and Bulls traded DeMarcus Cousins and Jimmy Butler, respectively, ahead of the possibility of them signing a supermax. 

Paul George, Kawhi Leonard and Anthony Davis have requested trades before possibly signing a supermax.

"I mean, the players that are eligible, frankly, are players that are going to get paid, and they're going to have any number of alternatives," Michele Roberts, executive director of the National Basketball Players Association, told ESPN. "It hasn't hurt them. It was something that they were able to secure and they were interested in getting it, and it was going to be a tremendous advantage in terms of just the amount of money.

"But I still don't see a downside. The only downside is to the extent that people absolutely believed that it was a slam dunk way to keep their guys. And it just isn't. And if they doubted it, they can now take a look at Anthony [Davis] and see, 'Oh, wow, there is no way.'"

In putting an extension back in play, teams are able to gauge whether they can retain players.

"Part of the goal in 'early-ing' up the discussion was that those players then wouldn't reach the end of their contracts and, frankly, surprise teams by then announcing they were leaving," Adam Silver said at his annual news conference last month. "The fact that a player left the market doesn't mean it was a failure, because at least in those cases the teams got value."

The NBA is expected to move up the start of its annual moratorium from midnight EST on July 1st to 6 PM EST on June 30th.

The move will allow formal dialogue between teams, players and agents to begin at a more reasonable hour.

The NBA will surely have more eyeballs on their own coverage and that of their partners moving the start to primetime.

Adam Silver defended the concept of NBA teams resting players when asked about 'load management' by David Rubenstein, who is co-executive chairman of multinational private equity firm The Carlyle Group.

"Now, load management means that players don't really play that much compared to what they could play," said Rubenstein. "In other words, they want to rest themselves up. They just want to take a day off. What is that?"

The term 'load management' was first used by the Los Angeles Lakers when LeBron James sat out a game at the Golden State Warriors shortly after returning from a groin injury.

"I think you're overstating it a bit," replied Silver. "I mean, load management, this concept, I mean, it is what it sounds like. It's, in terms of managing the load on players, the load being the amount of minutes they play. I would say most of our top players are still playing virtually every game.

"I mean there's actually an article in the Wall Street Journal today about Kawhi Leonard, about how - that he, I forget the precise number of games, I think he missed something like 20 games this past season. But I think - the story - they say it. But what is unusual about Kawhi is he missed almost the entire prior season. So he was recovering from an injury almost the entire season. And what people are pointing to right now is that he's playing great. I mean, they haven't won anything yet. But, you know - and he's playing a lot of minutes in the playoffs.

"And that article suggested that maybe that's a strategy other teams should be following. But I would also say with the Philadelphia 76ers, Joel Embiid missed almost the same amount of games this season and we'll see what impact it has on him. 

"So I just think load management is come more to mean in the NBA - it may mean that, you know, every, you know, 15 games or something like that, you may not play. And I only say, and even from a fan standpoint, from a league standpoint, and the science is not quite maybe what people may think it is here, I think we all thought in terms of our best players if resting a player every 15 games or something like that.

"If legitimate resting of players resulted in them being healthier in the playoffs, healthier longer, able to continue their career longer, I think we'd be in favor of it. This last issue is, though, then as a league, we may need to revisit the number of games in the season. Because maybe in the modern NBA, we've had an 82-game season for roughly 50 years. And maybe it's too many games on the player's bodies.