Adam Silver Supports Warriors Getting New Arena

NBA commissioner Adam Silver held his de facto “State of the League” news conference Thursday before Game 1 of the Finals — in the Oakland A’s batting cages.

Oracle Arena lacks the space for a large news conference, so the NBA for the past two years has dressed up the batting cages at the neighboring O.co Coliseum for Silver’s address. And for the second consecutive year, Silver made it clear that the Warriors need a new arena.

“I’m not from the Bay Area, so I can’t speak to sort of the relative importance of the various cities out here,” Silver said. “All I can tell you is I’m very supportive of [owners] Joe [Lacob] and Peter [Guber] and [team president] Rick Welts and their desire to move the franchise to San Francisco. I’m pleased it would remain in the Bay Area. I know they’ve had fantastic support here from Oakland. I don’t think there’s any doubt that they need a new arena in this market. And again, the project has been presented to me several times in San Francisco, and it seems like it will be yet again the best of its kind. I’m very supportive of them doing it.”

Source: Gary Washburn of The Boston Globe