NBA assists retired players

NBA deputy commissioner and chief operating officer Mark Tatum said the league has a formal partnership with the National Basketball Retired Players Association (NBRPA) and supports its initiatives as a way of taking care of the NBA’s own during a recent wide-ranging interview at the NBA Philippines office in Bonifacio Global City.

In the PBA, former pro players have formed a foundation called Samahan Ng Dating Propesyonal na Basketbolista ng Pilipinas to raise funds primarily for retired veterans in need of medical assistance. The group has met with PBA commissioner Willie Marcial who promised all-out support for the foundation’s proposed activities in line with the purpose of coming to the aid of less fortunate retired players.

“We work closely with the NBRPA,” said Tatum. “There’s a licensing relationship with them where we write them a check and we support them. In exchange, we have the opportunity to represent them on a collective basis and so that’s the partnership we have with them. But we do clinics together, we do all kinds of programs together for their constituents. We’re constantly working with them and assisting them in those efforts.”

The NBRPA was established in 1992 by NBA Hall of Famers Dave DeBusschere, Dave Bing, Dave Cowens, Oscar Robertson and Archie Clark. It not only covers NBA cagers but also former players from the ABA, WNBA and Harlem Globetrotters.

As for NBA commissioner Adam Silver, Tatum said the league is experiencing unprecedented growth under his leadership. “Adam is a visionary and he pushes us to think about how to be better, how to do things differently and how to move quickly,” said Tatum. “He’s also very inclusive. So he constantly gets input and feedback from owners, fans, players, employees. He has this incredible way of synthesizing all this information and making quick decisions. Under his leadership, we started a new league, the NBA 2K league. We changed the format of the All-Star Game for the first time in history.”

Tatum said the innovative concept of the NBA Awards Night came from feedback that Silver developed into a marketable event to recognize the league’s top performers. “It was based on a lot of feedback that we had gotten from our players, from our teams saying that handing out these awards during the playoffs wasn’t ideal because it distracted the players and teams,” he said. “And so we stepped back and asked, is there a better way to do this? Adam, to his credit isn’t bound by what we used to do. He’s really looking forward to what we should be doing. And getting that kind of feedback from players and teams, he took that to heart and we took that to heart and said, well, let’s do something different. So it’s those kinds of approaches and programs that make him an extraordinary leader. (Former NBA commissioner) David (Stern) groomed Adam. David is amazing.”

It was Tatum’s first and long overdue visit to the Philippines. “I’ve been meaning to come over to meet with our business partners, to meet with the people who are helping to move the business forward,” he said. “From Manila, we go to Singapore then Vietnam where I was born and haven’t been to in 20 years. I was born in Vung Tau, Vietnam. My dad grew up in Jamaica and went to the US when he was a teenager. He then joined the US Air Force and went to Vietnam where he met my mother. They got married in Vietnam, I was born and my dad brought us back to the US, to Brooklyn when I was one year old. Tatum’s a famous name but I’m not related to Jayson (of the Boston Celtics) or Earl (former NBA and PBA player) or Goose (former Globetrotter). I played basketball but not at a high level. I actually played baseball in college (Cornell), wasn’t good enough to play basketball. I was focused on baseball. The Philadelphia 76ers president Bryan Colangelo played basketball at Cornell. I heard a former Cornell player Alex Compton now lives in the Philippines and coaches in the PBA. I’d love to meet him.”

Regarding the Hack-A-Shaq, Tatum said the NBA has ruled it out in the last two minutes of every quarter. It was previously prohibited only in the last two minutes of the final quarter. “As a result, we’ve seen the incidence of the away-from-play fouls decrease significantly, more than 50 percent, something like that, or even 65 percent or so,” he said. “That change, just to go to the last two minutes of every quarter, has significantly decreased the amount of incidents. It still hasn’t been eliminated but it’s no longer the issue it was once a year or two years ago. …”