Bill Simmons calls out Adam Silver over NBA injury crisis

Bill Simmons has publicly called out NBA commissioner Adam Silver for refusing to shorten the 82-game regular season, calling the league's position "actual negligence and greed."

The podcaster and longtime advocate for a shorter season made the comments on his latest episode of The Bill Simmons Podcast.

Simmons pointed directly at the financial windfall the league is about to receive as evidence that the owners can afford to lose a few regular-season games.

He explained that the NBA is expected to collect an estimated $16 billion in expansion fees from the entry of new franchises in Las Vegas and Seattle, which are expected to join the league in the 2028-29 season.

That money will be divided among the 30 existing teams, not the players' salary pool.

"The question for me is that you're gonna get all this money," Simmons said on the podcast.

"The Foleys are gonna get Vegas. That's going to be $9.5 billion for the expansion team, and they're gonna commit all this stuff."

"So the owners all get $300 million plus a year; all the franchise values have gone way up, they're gonna get a second thing from Seattle, which is gonna be $7.5 billion, something like that."

Each team stands to receive roughly $533 million from the expansion fees alone, according to the figures Simmons cited.

But the players will not receive a direct share of that money.

What they will get, Simmons noted, is approximately five more home games per team once the two new franchises begin play.

"At some point, you've got to look at this holistically and be like 'Alright, well, you're adding these five home games for everybody, but you're ruining your players, and you're making their sport worse,'" Simmons said.

"And you're hurting careers, you're shortening careers."

Simmons has long argued that the NBA should reduce its regular season from 82 games to 70 games.

He said that virtually everyone who plays the game agrees with him.

"This should be a 70-game season, and if you talk to literally everybody who plays basketball, all of them would say that the season needs to be shorter," Simmons said.

"And if you don't do it at this point, I think it's negligence."

"I think it's actual negligence and greed. And those are the two words."

The discussion has resurfaced because the first two weeks of the 2026-27 NBA season have already seen a wave of injuries to high-profile players.

Anthony Edwards is among the stars who have gone down early in the season.

Simmons noted that the league's refusal to shorten the schedule is particularly irresponsible given the financial cushion the owners now have.

Last year, the NBA made $14 billion in revenue across 30 teams and $4.1 billion in operating income, according to Forbes data cited in the report.

That represents 30 cents of profit on every dollar of revenue.

The league's value-to-revenue ratio stands at 13.1x, with the median team at 12.2x.

Even the lowest-revenue team, the Memphis Grizzlies, generated $332 million in revenue last season.

The Grizzlies also have the lowest team valuation as of October 2026 at $4 billion.

For context, the iconic Boston Celtics franchise sold for only $6.1 billion just one year ago.

Despite these massive financial figures, the league and its owners continue to argue that they would lose revenue if the regular season were shortened.

Simmons called that argument greed.

Before aiming his criticism at Silver, Simmons had floated another possible cause for the recent injury surge.

Last week, he suggested that modern shoe technology might actually be backfiring on players.

"Something's fishy about all of it," Simmons said.

"It can't just be the wear and tear in basketball being harder."

"I wonder if the technology, because guys love the ability to do Eurosteps and do all these other things, I wonder if the technology is actually working against them in some cases."

Simmons pointed out that players today rely on lightweight, high-grip shoes that allow extreme lateral movements and quick stops.

Those same shoes, he speculated, might transfer more force to joints and tendons than older, heavier footwear did.

The NBA has consistently rejected calls to shorten the 82-game schedule.

Commissioner Adam Silver has previously defended the length of the season, citing the league's revenue structure and the preferences of broadcast partners.

Silver has also floated other ideas to address fan and player concerns.

One recent proposal that generated backlash was a suggestion to match the WNBA's game length, reducing NBA games from 48 minutes to 40 minutes.

That idea was met with widespread criticism from fans and analysts.

Simmons's latest comments come as the injury crisis has become a dominant topic in NBA media coverage.

Several prominent analysts and former players have joined the call for a shorter season.

The league has not issued a formal response to Simmons's remarks as of this writing.