Adam Silver Goes to War

Photographs by Paola Chapdelaine Adam Silver is one of America’s most powerful men. Part businessman and part diplomat, he leads a multibillion-dollar international conglomerate and exercises soft power across continents. But on the day we met, the commissioner of the National Basketball Association appeared aimless, drifting awkwardly through the roped-off VIP area of a sports-business conference in Nashville.Silver had just concluded a keynote session. Unlike other headliners, such as Major League Baseball’s Rob Manfred and the Southeastern Conference’s Greg Sankey, who’d been interviewed onstage by journalists, Silver had been joined in conversation by his friend Bob Myers, a former Golden State Warriors executive, who opened by congratulating Silver on his decency, integrity, and “moral compass.” The commissioner is carefully stage-managed. Media engagements are rare; rarer still are the probing questions that might be asked of someone leading a business valued at roughly $200 billion. Early last year, I’d approached the NBA about a profile—not just of Silver but of the game itself, a holistic look at the evolution of professional basketball. The answer: a hard no. Hence the trip to Nashville.I had been warned, when talking with his contemporaries, that Silver is kept in bubble wrap. Now I witnessed it up close. Silver’s longtime flack, Mike Bass, was refusing to answer my texts—we stood 50 feet apart, separated by the VIP rope, as he stared at his phone—asking for an introduction. Meanwhile, officials from three separate teams, whom I’d planned to meet in Nashville, had all canceled. It seemed like a coordinated snubbing. Which left me no choice: When Silver wandered within reach, I slipped the rope and thrust an open hand in his direction. The commissioner, who is six-foot-three and wears a clean-shaven head, studied my name tag—The Atlantic—and then spun toward Bass, who looked exasperated. Silver’s complexion turned colorless, almost ethereal, as he shook my