Adam Silver

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Silver

Adam Silver (born April 25, 1962) is an American lawyer and the commissioner of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He has held this post since February 1, 2014.

Before joining the NBA, he served as a litigation associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore, a law firm in New York, and worked as a law clerk to Judge Kimba Wood, a federal judge for the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Early life

Silver was born into a Jewish family north of New York City in the suburb of Rye in Westchester County. From an early age, Silver was a New York Knicks fan.

He graduated from Rye High School, and then from Duke University in 1984. He worked as a legislative aide for U.S. Congressman Les AuCoin from 1984 to 1985. He earned a law degree from the University of Chicago in 1988.

Before joining the NBA, he served as a litigation associate at Cravath, Swaine & Moore, a law firm in New York. Silver also worked as a law clerk to Judge Kimba Wood, a federal judge for the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.

NBA career

Silver began working for the NBA in 1992. Before assuming his current role, Silver held the positions of special assistant to the commissioner, NBA chief of staff, senior vice president of NBA Entertainment, and president of NBA Entertainment. Silver was an executive producer of the IMAX movie Michael Jordan to the Max, as well as the TNT documentary Whatever Happened to Micheal Ray? He also worked on the production side of Like Mike and Year of the Yao.

In 2003, Silver was named to TIME Magazine and CNN's list of Global Business Influentials; he has also been named to The Sporting News's "100 Most Powerful People in Sports" on multiple occasions.

On April 19, 2006, Silver was appointed to serve as deputy commissioner of the NBA.

Commissioner

On October 25, 2012, he was endorsed by David Stern to be the next NBA Commissioner when Stern announced that he would step down on February 1, 2014.

On April 29, 2014, Silver banned Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling from the NBA for life in response to racist comments made by Sterling, during a private conversation with Sterling's girlfriend. Additionally, he fined Sterling $2.5 million, the maximum allowed under the NBA Constitution, and urged owners to vote to expel Sterling from ownership of the Clippers.

On November 13, 2014, Silver published an op-ed piece in The New York Times, where he announced that he is in favor of legalized and regulated sports betting, mentioning that it "should be brought out of the underground and into the sunlight where it can be appropriately monitored and regulated".

Honors

Silver was named 2015 Executive of the Year by Sports Business Journal. That year he was also named one of Time's 100 Most Influential People and one of Fortune's 50 Greatest Leaders.

In 2014 he was named the Sports Illustrated Executive of the Year and was ranked number one on Sports Business Journal's list of the 50 Most Influential People in Sports Business.

Other

As of July 1, 2015, Silver serves on Duke University's Board of Trustees. He also serves on the board of the Lustgarten Pancreatic Cancer Foundation and New York Road Runners.