Adam Silver backs Memphis after LeBron James' criticism, but open to Grizzlies playing 'a few games a year' in Nashville

He then insisted that the Grizzlies need to relocate to Memphis, and claimed that he wasn’t the only one in the league with those feelings.

“We’re all like, ‘You guys have to move,’” he continued. “Just go over to Nashville. You got Vanderbilt over there. You got the f***ing NASCAR. You got a stadium, don’t they got a hockey team too? … They got everything.”

The Grizzlies first entered the league in 1995, though they started out in Vancouver and entered the NBA at the same time as the Toronto Raptors. The franchise then relocated to Memphis from Canada ahead of the 2001-02 campaign, and has been there ever since.

While James has a point that Nashville is a larger city with sports infrastructure and other professional teams already in place — the NFL’s Tennessee Titans, NHL’s Nashville Predators and MLS’s Nashville SC already call that city home — Silver isn’t pushing for the Grizzlies to make the move to the center of the state.

And James’ opinion, Silver said, isn’t the dominant one throughout the league.

“Players I talk to all the time like playing in Memphis,” Silver said. “I’ve never heard that issue of players not wanting to be in Memphis … Memphis has been a great market historically for the NBA. There’s amazing history in that city, amazing culture. It’s a big country. As I look out at our 30 teams, we want teams to be able to do well everywhere … From my standpoint, there’s no reason why the Memphis Grizzlies can’t be successful.”