NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said on Friday that the league would consider cutting down the regular season but only after a "meaningful" substitute solution was found. Meanwhile, he also talked about setting up new, small tournaments to replace the current All-Star Game.

Silver was attending the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference when he mentioned the above matters. In today's regular season, each team plays as many as 82 games in over six months. It's simply too long for anyone to remain focused on the game or stay healthy. However, it's not easy to change it because the number of games is closely connected to the league's revenue. Everybody would like to play 70 games in the regular season but nobody wants to see their pay get cut by 20 percent.

That's why Silver emphasized that the replacement for the games must also replace the revenue.

The recent All-Star Game was a different story. Fans were more disappointed by game than the regular season. The event was supposed to help realize the dream of having the league's best players compete together in one game. Nonetheless, as players did not want to get hurt in an exhibition game, the All-Star Game lacked even fundamental physical confrontation and looked more like a mixture of 3-pt shooting and slam dunk contests.

"The All-Star Game didn't work. I get it. We put an earring on a pig," said Silver, who called the All-Star Game "an afterthought." He shared the idea of replacing the event with a midseason or preseason tournament for teams to compete for a separate championship, like they do in European soccer. Or some of the teams could compete in mini-tournaments in Asia or Europe.

Another hot topic at the conference was the drama put on by Anthony Davis and the New Orleans Pelicans. The 25-year-old All-Star power forward asked the Pelicans to trade him 10 days before the trade deadline, causing quite a stir among three teams – the Pelicans, the Los Angeles Lakers and the Boston Celtics.

"Maybe that was a mistake. It's a bad dynamic. It's a bit of a mess," said Silver. The league has been trying for decades to help teams, especially those from small-market cities, maintain their star players while leaving the players enough options to go to where they want. However, Davis' actions made everyone unhappy, including himself, the Pelicans and the teams that wanted to acquire him.

Silver did not forget about caring for the players. He called supporting players' mental health an ongoing initiative. "When I meet with them, what surprises me is that they're truly unhappy. A lot of these young men are generally unhappy. If you're around a team in this day and age, there are always headphones on. [The players] are isolated, and they have their heads down," Silver told The Ringer's Bill Simmons.

Though many NBA players are millionaires, they also suffer from mental health issues. For example, DeMar DeRozan of the San Antonio Spurs and Kevin Love of the Cleveland Cavaliers both battled depression.