And-Ones: Silver, Simmons, Sterling, Valentine

Commissioner Adam Silver stumped for raising the NBA’s minimum age to 20 and pointed to an agreement with the National Basketball Players Association to shorten this summer’s July moratorium as a sign of a high level of trust between the league and the union, as Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders details. The commissioner made his comments Tuesday while also noting that the moratorium change is only for this summer (Twitter link). “I would say with this executive director [Michele Roberts], I’d say there are a lot of things we work out behind closed doors all the time,” Silver said. “Issues that are not necessarily high profile – we deal with each other on a daily basis.  Again, these are our players.  This is our union.  It didn’t surprise me we worked out [the moratorium issue].”
The league and the union have until December 15th to opt out of the collective bargaining agreement. See more from around the NBA:
  • Elite draft prospect Ben Simmons has confirmed his selection of the Klutch Sports Group as his agency, as he revealed in a video on the Twitter feed for Uninterrupted.com. Adrian Wojnarowski of The Vertical on Yahoo Sports reported last week that the former LSU combo forward would sign with Klutch and agent Rich Paul, who represents LeBron James, among others.
  • A federal district court judge dismissed an antitrust lawsuit that former Clippers owner Donald Sterling brought against the NBA in his continued dispute of the 2014 $2 billion sale of the team to Steve Ballmer, as Nathan Fenno of the Los Angeles Times details. The suit, in which Sterling sought more than $1 billion in damages and named wife Shelley Sterling and former NBA commissioner David Stern among the defendants, alleged that the NBA conspired to strip him of the team.
  • The yawning gap between Denzel Valentine‘s superb offensive talents and his glaring defensive shortcomings make him a particularly intriguing draft prospect liable to go anywhere from the late lottery to the end of the first round, observes Jonathan Givony of DraftExpress in a scouting report. Dana Gauruder of Hoops Rumors went in-depth on the Michigan State senior earlier this month.
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