2026 NBA fan survey results: What do you really feel about Adam Silver? Referees? Tanking?

The NBA is in a good place.

Don’t take my word for it, or think this is recency bias from the a brilliant postseason we’ve watched these past weeks. This assessment of the current NBA is your own, solicited last month from our ALLCITY NBA fan survey, which asked 21 questions largely centered around the league’s hottest issues.

We had 742 respondents. This isn’t a scientific data set; it shouldn’t be viewed as such. The survey begins with demographic information, which should provide some insight into who’s answering these questions, but public opinion surveying exists as a profession for a reason. Rather than guess what the margin for error is, I suspect these results more closely show what engaged, online basketball fans feel about the league. About two-thirds of the respondents come from ALLCITY Network markets, too, which you’ll soon see.

That said, these results provide color and insight into how fans feel about the topics that national voices and team podcasters talk about all the time. This is certainly more scientific than tallying up how many times these opinions pop up in our live chats or how many posts go viral about them. Later this week and next, I’ll follow up on one or two of these topics and what I found most fascinating about those results, but I’ll add some initial takeaways throughout this article, too.

Which decade did you become an NBA fan? 

Which decade of the NBA was/is your favorite?

If your favorite team is based in an ALLCITY market, which one is it?

These are the aforementioned demographic questions. The median respondent is something close to a 35-year-old who’s watched basketball most of their life but most loves this sport in its current iteration, be it this decade or last, which about two-thirds of all responses named as their favorites.

How often, on average, did you watch NBA games this season that didn’t involve your favorite team?

How often, on average, did you consume NBA content this season that didn’t discuss your favorite team?

Functionally, this is another demographics question more than an accurate sampling of how fans consume the NBA: We’ve got an engaged bunch answering these questions. I don’t think, using scientific survey methodologies, these results would hold up. But that’s good. I’m more interested, in the questions that follow, what engaged fans think about them.

How would you describe the current overall state of the NBA?

About 75 percent of respondents chose ‘6’ or above for this question’s worst (1) to best (10) scale; the leading choice was 7, with 30.5 percent of the vote. That feels fair. I considered, and ultimately opted against, adding another question below that asked for the state of the NBA postseason, which surely would’ve shown a stark contrast between the league’s overall product and its title-deciding tournament. But I aim not to ask questions when I can predict what the answers will be.

Which of these common complaints about the NBA meaningfully affect your own enjoyment of the league?

If you were commissioner, which three of these issues would you most urgently look to address?

The difference between these questions: The first allowed as many options to be selected as respondents felt were appropriate for it; the second forced those who took this survey to choose only three. I feared the first question would have too many responses that the second’s winnowing would be needed. As it turns out, the results stayed about the same: About 61 percent of you felt officiating affects your enjoyment of the sport, and another 51 percent chose it as a leading issue to address, the leading option for both questions.

When forced to choose your three biggest issues, none of the other options had majority support: The closest ones were tanking (45.8 percent), sports gambling partnerships (43.7 percent), and streaming fracture (36.9 percent). It’s interesting that national talking heads was selected 55 percent as an issue but, when forced to choose, only 25 percent of respondents named it. Perhaps it’s an accepted distaste. It could also be influenced by my editorial language used for these topics: In truth, what can the commissioner do about what Stephen A. Smith says?

We’ll revisit tanking momentarily, but those who felt it was an issue (46.4 percent) almost always chose it as an issue to address (45.8 percent). That was the smallest drop off, question to question, of the nine presented. I also may have left off issues you feel I should’ve listed, or simplified them to something broader than your actual complaints.

I still thought the first question, allowing respondents to choose every single option if they wanted, would have higher numbers than it did. I’d argue every single topic I chose could be improved; whether it affects your love for basketball is a higher barrier to clear.

How would you describe the current overall state of NBA officiating?

Just under 40 percent of respondents, on this worst-to-best scale, chose three. Among this sample size, which again I believe skews towards more passionate and active fans of the sport, I suspect many people do understand it’s a f—ing hard job and most calls are the correct ones.

It still could be better. Tony Brothers, looking at you.

If you were commissioner, which three of these common complaints about officiating would you most urgently look to address?

This was another choose-only-three question: I wanted to force respondents to identify which of these rules irked them most. Unsurprisingly, foul baiting and excessive contact landed on nearly 73 percent of the responses I had. That, too, was an editorial decision: Perhaps I should have separated out different ways players earn free throws and, well, grift. But the grifting was, by far, named as the most grueling issue to watch.

The second-most common choice, inconsistent calls at 65.2 percent, feels like more of the same.

The majority of this survey’s responses were submitted within the first few days of this survey’s publish on April 22; it’s possible the postseason’s increased physicality affected what voters chose. One day later, I published a story about that increased physicality, after all, where one assistant coach told me, “I feel like you can get away with anything off the ball. It doesn’t make sense to guard any other way.” It was the third-most common response (32.3 percent). Then: in-game complaining (25.9 percent) and in-game delays (24.8 percent).

The NBA has expressed its belief that tanking is the league’s most serious issue. To what extent do you agree with them?

To disincentivize tanking, the NBA has proposed rules that would further reduce lottery odds for bad teams. If forced to choose between these two dynamics, which is more important to you?

To me, this is the paradigm that the league’s proposed tanking reforms exist within: Is it OK to potentially doom several teams to the sewage lines at the standings’ bottom for multiple years without hope if it otherwise eliminates horrific March hoops no one enjoys? The question above this one shows that fans have grayer views than this binary I forced upon them. But I wanted that forced choice: Is it better for bad teams to have hope, or for no team to ever try to lose again?

I considered several other tanking reform questions; there were too many overlapping proposals, some too complicated to explain in a clickable choice, to ask y’all which ideas you liked better. I don’t think anyone likes when teams try to lose, to be clear. But that may threaten the competitive balance, which more respondents named as a more serious balance to strike.

The NBA’s proposed and likely expansion would create two new franchises in Las Vegas and Seattle. Do you feel this proposal makes sense?

In past fan surveys when I covered the Mavericks, I allowed for short answer questions. Ultimately, that turns the entire point of this piece (numerical, if unscientific, evidence) into another anecdotal funhouse of my own choosing. That said, I’d be curious why some feel the league shouldn’t expand. I’m not surprised there’s some hesitation about Las Vegas.

If the NBA expands to Las Vegas and Seattle, which Western Conference team should move to the East?

I was honestly only curious if the ‘move Oklahoma City to the East for the league’s competitive balance’ idea had any traction. Not really, it seems.

Should the NBA more seriously consider shortening its schedule and reducing how many games are played?

I’m sure everyone who voted yes was swayed by my deeply reported March feature on this topic.

How confident are you in Adam Silver’s leadership as NBA commissioner?

How has your confidence in Adam Silver changed in the past five years?

Adam Silver is tolerated, not beloved; 72 percent of our sample said their opinion of the commissioner has declined from where it was five years ago, and 22.6 percent chose 1, or worst, to describe their confidence in him.

Which player is the current face of the NBA?

The NBA’s current face is … none / more than one player, a superstar who’s of course destined for the Hall of Fame. I’ve written about this nebulous ‘face of the NBA’ topic in a previous publication; we’re not entirely sure it matters, and we don’t quite know how to define it despite our best attempts. But while we exist in LeBron James and Stephen Curry’s twilights, none or more than one feels like the right answer. No one has decisively come to claim it …

Which player under 30 is likeliest to be the next face of the NBA?

… yet.

In which mediums do you regularly consume NBA content?

Reopen the schools! We must read more!

It’s no surprise, however, that team-specific podcasts lead the way with 70.4 percent. In the demographics segment, two-thirds of the respondents were self-identified as those in ALLCITY Network markets, which better mean two-thirds of y’all watch ALLCITY NBA shows*. Every national writer understands their articles won’t ever have the same audience as their words.

(*I slightly shortened the choices for this graphic, but the survey clarified that live YouTube podcasts should count as team podcasts while YouTube was meant for produced videos like Thinking Basketball or JxmyHighroller.)

Other online communities was an open-ended one to cover anything I had missed; I hope 10.5 percent of you all are still posting on the RealGM message boards.

What’s the coolest non-game-winning basketball play?

At least 18.6 of you all are correct.

Tim Cato is ALLCITY’s national NBA writer currently based in Dallas. He can be reached at tcato@alldlls.com or on X at @tim_cato.