NBA commissioner Adam Silver joined ESPN's "The Pat McAfee Show" on Thursday ahead of the playoffs, which get underway on Saturday. To little surprise, the Luka Dončić trade, which is still commanding headlines months after it was made,

After months of endless Chicken Little-ing about the NBA's early-season ratings challenges, the league's most vocal critics have little to crow about as the playoffs get underway, since overall TV deliveries were largely of a piece with last year's numbers.