Warner Bros. Discovery is expected to remain aggressive in keeping its partnership with the NBA on TNT as part of the next national television deal.

WBD Sports Chair and CEO Luis Silberwasser spoke with John Ourand of Sports Business Journal over All-Star Game weekend.

“We love our relationship with the NBA,” he said. “We love the business that we have with them, and we look forward to a very bright future.”

WBD CEO David Zaslav said late late year that Turner did not "have to have the NBA."

Silberwasser said that league officials leading the negotiations already know how much WBD wants to keep those rights when they come up after the 2024-25 season.

Silberwasser: “I understand the noise out there. But I do hope that people see our commitment to the rights that we have and our commitment to making those rights better than they've ever been. If we were not interested in a long-term relationship with the NBA, we wouldn't be doing the things that we're doing. When we speak to our league partners, they know it.”

The NBA and NBPA are negotiating new luxury tax tiers and rates as part of their ongoing collective bargaining agreement talks.

The sides are interested in increasing the lower tier to make it more viable for teams to spend money into the tax. With salaries increasing across the league, increasing the lower tax bracket tier allows the tax tiers to match up with the money being spent on payroll.

Currently, for between $0 and $4,999,999 over the cap, the tax rate is $1.50 for every dollar over the cap. For teams between $5,000,000 and $9,999,999 over the cap, the tax rate is $1.75 for every dollar over the cap. 

The two sides can redo the dividing lines to make a small dip into the tax more manageable while stepping up the charges for franchises willing to heedlessly go into the tax.

The owners previously sought a hard cap as part of the new CBA, which was treated as a non-starter by the players. 

As part of their ongoing CBA discussions, the NBA and NBPA could loosen the current limits on contract extensions.

Under the current CBA, teams and players can only increase the player’s salary by 120 percent in the first new year of the extension unless that player qualifies as a designated player/rookie or makes well below the league’s average salary. 

The sides have discussed shifting that to potentially 140-150 percent, which would open the door for players who signed contracts that eventually become below-market deals to get enough of a raise to commit to a deal before becoming a free agent.

O.G. Anunoby, Domantas Sabonis and Lauri Markkanen are three players who could be impacted by a rule change in this area. 

The NBA and NBPA are making progress on negotations on a new collective bargaining agreement.

There has been significant progress in recent weeks on key issues and there is hope a deal can be finalized in the coming weeks. The two sides recently extended their opt-out deadline to March 31st.

The NBPA has informed the league office that it is their intention and goal to complete a deal in March.

“We want to finish this deal soon and certainly want this wrapped up before the (March 31) deadline,” one high-ranking source involved in the players’ negotiations, who was granted anonymity so they could speak freely, told The Athletic. “It’s close — we need to dot the I’s and cross the T’s.”

Among the most critical issues, the NBA and NBPA are negotiating new luxury-tax tiers and rates to increase the lower tier and make it more viable for teams to spend money into the tax. The NBA and NBPA are attempting to identify where the tax bracket tiers should be set.

Warner Bros. Discovery said Friday night that it is abandoning its regional sports network business. 

AT&T SportsNet has deals with the Houston Rockets, Portland Trail Blazers and Utah Jazz in the NBA.

The SportsNet announcement comes on the heels of news that Diamond Sports Group is also prepping to file for bankruptcy this spring. DSG owns and operates the Bally Sports regional networks and has the local television rights for over 40 MLB, NBA and NHL teams. 

While WBD is attempting to exit from the RSN business, they are also negotiating with the NBA on extending its national television deals.

Executives at Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Investment Co. and Qatar Investment Authority have expressed their interest in NBA ownership and are actively hunting for a possible match.

Mubadala and QIA’s interest is preliminary and there is no certainty that either will buy a stake in an NBA team.

The prospect of NBA ownership became possible late last year after the league’s Board of Governors approved a rule change to allow sovereign wealth funds to buy as much as a 20% stake in teams. Previously, such funds could only do so through indirect exposure.

“The NBA Board of Governors recently decided to allow direct, passive investments in NBA teams by institutional investors,” NBA spokesman Mike Bass said in a statement. “All such investments are subject to league review and NBA Board approval.”

The New York Knicks could be a potential target. MSGS’s biggest equity shareholder is investment firm Silver Lake Management, which has strong ties with Abu Dhabi, and is a co-investor in Premier League giant Manchester City.

“The NBA Board of Governors recently decided to allow direct, passive investments in NBA teams by institutional investors,” NBA spokesman Mike Bass said in a statement. “All such investments are subject to league review and NBA Board approval.”

The NBA and NBPA have extended their opt-out deadline of the current collective bargaining agreement twice as they continue to negotiate a deal. During All-Star weekend, both sides expressed optimism talks are moving in the right direction.

"I would just say it's an absolute priority for us as well to get a deal done as soon as possible," Silver said at his annual news conference.

Tamika Tremaglio echoed Silver's sentiment a couple of hours earlier, after the NBPA spent the past two days meeting to elect members to its executive committee and discuss the CBA talks.

"We are very motivated to get this done," Tremaglio said. "Our players are very competitive, and we want to see [this to] completion as well. So, it is absolutely a priority for us."

"I would say that we're in a great space," said CJ McCollum, who is president of the NBPA. "We continue to move forward, and I'm happy with the progress that we continue to make, although there is room for more improvement in areas in which we'll continue to grow. I think we're definitely heading in the right direction."

Adam Silver answered multiple questions about load management during his press conference at All-Star weekend in Salt Lake City. 

"I’m not sure," said Silver when asked if the number of games missed without serious injury is a big problem for the NBA. "You see, I hesitate to weigh in on an issue as to whether players are playing enough because there is real medical data and scientific data about what’s appropriate.

"Sometimes to me the premise of a question as to whether players are playing enough suggests that they should be playing more; that, in essence, there should be some notion of just get out there and play. Having been in the league for a long time, having spent time with a lot of some of our great legends, I don’t necessarily think that’s the case.

"The world that we used to have where it was just get out there and play through injuries, for example, I don’t think that’s appropriate. Clearly, I mean, at the end of the day, these are human beings — many of you talk to and know well — who are often playing through enormous pain, who play through all kinds of — you know, I hesitate to label them injuries, but play through all kinds of aches and pains on a regular basis.

"The suggestion I think that these men in the case in the NBA somehow should just be out there more for its own sake, I don’t buy into.

"I think, on the other hand, then there’s the fan aspect it of saying, all right, well, if that’s going to be the case, that players are not going to be able to participate in a certain amount of games, what should the response be from the league, and how should you be presenting your product?

"It’s interesting, because even given where we are now, I don’t think the issue is quite what some suggest. I mean, our stars are not missing that many games for resting. I mean, we have injuries. I think we would all agree that’s a separate issue. But sort of as a measure of single games missed, it’s not that bad."

Silver also addressed the possibility of lengthening the schedule to accommodate 82 games over a longer period of times to avoid as many games on back-to-back nights as possible. 

"We are very focused on it. We hear it from our fans when players aren’t there," Silver said. "We think we can do a better job, but we don’t have a specific solution yet."

If the NBA eliminates the "one-and-done" rule during its next collective bargaining agreement, the union would like to make sure the sudden influx of young players doesn't result in a surplus of lost roster spots for veteran players.

When the rule is changed, the first year where high school players become eligible to be drafted will essentially be a "double draft" with more second round picks and undrafted players projected to make NBA rosters than in a normal year. 

"This is something that we have had conversations about," Tamika Tremaglio said. "In our meetings today, we spent a lot of time talking about that.

"We recognize that we really do need to make sure that we have the structure in place, if we're going to have people join the league at the age of 18. We also appreciate that there is a lot of benefit to really having veterans who can bring those 18-year-olds along. And so you know, certainly anything that we would even consider, to be quite honest, would have to include a component that would allow veterans to be a part of it as well."

The NBA continues to maintain the position that expansion will not be addressed until after the league finalizes a new Collective Bargaining Agreement with the NBPA, as well as new national media rights deals with its broadcast partners.

The NBA is widely expected to expand to Seattle and possibly Las Vegas or Mexico City by the end of the decade.

"There haven’t been any discussions on expansion recently," said Adam Silver during his All-Star Game press conference. "What I’ve said before, because the topic comes up a lot, I would say mainly people asking me or others in the league about it is that it is natural at some point that an organization expands. In this case because we’re both in a CBA cycle and a national media cycle, our current deals are up in two and a half years.

"The view from our governors has been let’s figure out exactly what the new CBA looks like, let’s figure out what our new media deals look like. Then let’s think about expansion.

"So invariably we will. There’s no active discussions in the league office right now, but we’ll turn back to it in a few years."