Adam Silver Quotes

Players are ready to play, We're not on strike. It's a lockout.

A lot of players know I've been around 13 years and this is my second lockout. I got a lot of respect. I know what's going on both for the league and the union.

I regret the 1998 - 99 lockout. I regret that we didn't work harder to educate our players and our owners about what the damage would be. I never can quite come up with the answer on what else we should have done, but I always blame a part of the problem on us and some part on the players.

The owners said that they wanted the salary cap and refused to promise that they would abide by the rules of the just-expired contract after the season ended. Believing we had no choice, the players went on strike in August of 1994.

It is time for everyone to sit down - the NCAA, the NBA, the players union and the coaching fraternity - and come up with suitable solutions to these problems.

We're all negotiators.

Any professional league that goes on strike right now - that's just suicide.

The owners don't win by having a lockout. Shutting down your business is not good for anybody and it's certainly not good for the players, it's certainly not good for the fans. And that's most important to us.

Yes, we've seen it all before. And yes, those who do not study history are condemned to repeat it. But no, the sky is not falling - baseball is such a great game that neither the owners nor the players can kill it. After some necessary carnage, market forces will prevail.

This is a coup for commissioner Bud Selig. I'm surprised it's as good as it is.

The term negotiation implies compromise; painful concessions on the part of both parties.

It takes someone with a unique background to stand up to the threat of a strike and win.

You realize it's a business and that teams are going to do what's best for them. That's how it is. That's what we sign up for as a Major League Baseball player.

Free agency is free agency. I love when NBA players get paid.

Basketball is definitely basketball and that's what we love to play, but in the NBA, there's a business side of it. It's a very serious matter and it's important. It's important to me, it's important to my family.

The hockey lockout of 1994 - 1995 has been settled. They have stopped bickering... and can now get down to some serious bloodshed!

There was something special about watching a manager and umpire both convinced they were totally right, but knowing that one had to be wrong. As an ump, those moments made my job fun, and getting 'nose-to-nose' was part of my job description.

Conflict is always fun to play.

The players wanted more money, higher salary caps and they didn't have that family relationship we felt with the players. Mentally, the players were more businesslike.

As I learn more and more about the six-year extension of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, it's obvious to me that NFL owners understood that they were going to get a new deal done at all costs.

With negotiations, you never know what's going to happen.

I understand business and understand the ugly face of baseball, which is the business part of baseball.

The only thing wrong with the NBA - or any other professional sport, for that matter - is a wild epidemic of Dumbness and overweening Greed. There is no Mystery about it, and no need to change any rules.

I am dead set against free agency. It can ruin baseball.

If we cannot agree, then at least we ought to move on.