Silver takes over as NBA commissioner

Adam Silver officially took over as NBA commissioner Saturday.

The NBA announced Silver as its fifth commissioner with a photo on Twitter of Silver holding a basketball and shaking hands with outgoing commissioner David Stern. It included a caption that read: “It’s official: Adam Silver succeeds David Stern as NBA Commissioner.”

Stern retired exactly 30 years to the day he began his stint as the NBA’s longest-tenured and most successful commissioner.

Silver joined the NBA as Stern’s assistant in 1992 and became deputy commissioner in 2006.

“It is a source of great satisfaction to me that the NBA will now be led by commissioner Adam Silver, for whom I have tremendous admiration, respect and expectations as he and his experienced and dedicated team take the NBA to successes that were unimaginable even a short while ago,” Stern wrote in a statement Friday.

Stern announced his retirement on Oct. 25, 2012. Silver was unanimously chosen by owners to succeed him.

The NBA will begin using games balls with Silver’s signature.

Silver, a former attorney, left the legal profession to join the NBA. He replaced Russ Granik as deputy commissioner after serving as Stern’s assistant, the NBA’s Chief of Staff and then ran NBA Entertainment for about a decade.

Silver was also the NBA’s lead negotiator during the 2011 collective bargaining talks.

“It’s been David’s show. Even up to the last meeting. But there has never been a question whether Adam was involved in every important decision,” Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban wrote in an email to the Associated Press.

Owners also unanimously approved league executive Mark Tatum as deputy commissioner this week.