The NBA recently held its 2026 draft, which was just a couple of weeks after the New York Knicks won the NBA championship over the San Antonio Spurs. The Knicks reached the NBA mountaintop for the first time in 53 years in this one, reversing a trend over the last few years of multiple small market teams winning the NBA title.
Still, NBA commissioner Adam Silver is on board with the idea that every team in the league, regardless of market size, has a chance to compete for titles.
“The goal over time has been, and I’ve said it, to be more NFL-like. Where you believe your team has a shot,” Silver said during an appearance on The Dan Patrick Show, per Awful Announcing. “Maybe not every single season, but your view is, regardless of the market size, if your team is well-managed, if you have a little bit of luck in there, you have a good chance to be in the playoffs and potentially be the champion.”
Silver also pointed to the Spurs as an example of how visibility is still more than possible, even if the city itself isn’t that big compared to other NBA destinations.
“…I think what we’ve seen is societal changes; I think that nobody’s going to say that Victor Wembanyama in San Antonio can’t get global attention because it’s a smaller market,” he said.
Last year, it was the Oklahoma City Thunder, who are the smallest market in the NBA, that got the job done and won the NBA title, and two years before that, the Denver Nuggets, who are not historically a marquee franchise, reached the league’s mountaintop.
Over the next few years, other fans of small market teams will hope that luck reaches their city.
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