Adam Silver Awkwardly Thinks His Relationship With China Makes Him As Influential As Henry Kissinger

Adam Silver compared himself (rather unexpectedly) to the late American diplomat Henry Kissinger on “The Pat McAfee Show.”

During an appearance on the popular sports talk show, host Pat McAfee asked the NBA commissioner if he ever gets involved in international relations matters with China. Unsurprisingly, the communist nation serves as the league’s biggest international partner. That frankly explains a lot of the NBA’s questionable business and PR decisions (more on that in a minute).

Silver went on to mention that he believes he plays a role in helping to improve the tense relationship between the two countries. That’s when he compared himself to Kissinger.

"I get pulled in, though not always in a positive way. I will say, I was reading a lot of those obituaries around Henry Kissinger’s death at 100 where was sort of an exemplar of a great global diplomat," Silver said. "I wanna say, I understand. This is going too far off field maybe from your question — I, of course, believe we have to have a strong military. I’m a big believer. At the same time — call it soft power or call it diplomacy — I think through sport, through culture and through arts, it brings connectivity with people of diverse cultures and backgrounds."

He also believes that marketing his product helps remind people that they need ways to stay physically active.

"Even though we’re seeing more prosperity in many places, you continue to see issues around childhood obesity, diabetes, and in many cases it’s because kids aren’t active," Silver said. "That’s a whole separate issue that you need fun, engaging platforms like sports just to keep kids running and engaged and wanting to be outside and wanting to do things with physical coordination. That all becomes very important."

Adam Silver And Henry Kissinger Have Accomplished Wildly Different Things

I get that sports are one of the most powerful ways through which people connect. But being the commissioner of a professional basketball league is a far cry from being an ambassador.

Henry Kissinger, who died last week at the age of 100, was one of the most influential American diplomats in history. (Photo by Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Kissinger, on the other hand, actually did things that an ambassador would do. Say what you want about his legacy, Kissinger spearheaded some major efforts in U.S. foreign relations:

Again, people have varying opinions on Kissinger. But at least he did more than just market his business product in a foreign country. He enacted major changes in the geopolitical landscape in ways Silver will never do.

The NBA Appears To Care More About What China Wants Than Anything Else

Furthermore, Kissinger advocated primarily for American interests while in his role. However, in Silver’s relationship with China, he’s seemed far too willing to cater to the communist country on multiple occasions.

In 2019, then-Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey published a tweet in which he supported the protesters in Hong Kong who attempted to stand up to the communist regime. 

As soon as China caught wind of this, they suspended all Rockets broadcasts within their country. The NBA pressured Morey into deleting his tweet and issuing an apology. Furthermore, the NBA released a statement in which they called the tweet “regrettable,” and that it did not “represent the Rockets or the NBA.”

That’s a major red flag. But the communist catering doesn’t stop there. 

In 2021, former NBA All-Star Enes Kanter Freedom wore a pair of shoes in which he criticized China’s genocidal treatment of the Muslim Uyghur population. Shortly thereafter, he also posted  a video calling for China to free Tibet. Once the CCP heard his message, they canceled the next Boston Celtics broadcast (the team he played for at the time) in their borders.

Not long after both of these events took place, the Celtics cut him. In the two years since this happened, Freedom hasn’t received a single contract offer from a team, despite having at least a few solid years ahead of him. Freedom believes this was because of his anti-CCP stance, which is a highly credible theory.

Adam Silver And The NBA Have Become An Extension Of China

So clearly, there’s some shady consequences of the NBA doing business with China. It looks like his efforts to “bring people together” have yielded some pretty awful results instead. And yet, Silver still believes that there’s some good that can come from the pairing.

Mind you, he said pretty much the same thing in 2021. Two years ago, he indicated that money meant more to him than maintaining the integrity of his product. 

“I don’t want to overstate it. While I’m a believer in soft power, I’m certainly not sitting here claiming that by virtue of televising NBA games in China lo and behold, there’ll be a reckoning in China to adopt a Western point of view about human rights,” he said in an interview with TIME.

“I do think that in order to bring about realistic change, we have to build relationships… basketball happens to be the most popular team sport in China right now,” Silver added. “We think that through that common love and appreciation of the game of basketball, that that’s a way to bring people together. It’s as simple as that.”

It’s true, we can’t expect China to model America’s values by watching basketball. But Silver seems to allow the inverse to happen: America promoting communist values for the sake of a bottom lime. 

Since he claims he gets involved in international relations with China (however unwillingly), that begs a question. Is Silver using his platform to spur change in China? Or is he allowing China’s influence over him and his product to become stronger in the United States? 

Based on many of his decisions, it seems to be the latter.