“You see him on TV and stuff, and he doesn’t seem like that type of guy,” said Kevon Looney, who was the 30th selection at the draft last year. “I just put my hand out there, followed his lead, and we dapped.”

Back in 2014, when the public was still just getting to know Silver, “Saturday Night Live” anticipated the humor of this visual disconnect. It parodied Silver’s bookish mien in the wake of his decision to oust Donald Sterling as owner of the Los Angeles Clippers. Sterling had been recorded making racist remarks about black people, and Silver was quick to act.

“I’ve gotten more high-fives from random black people this week than any week in my life,” the cast member Taran Killam said as he impersonated Silver in the sketch. “And I’ve learned many wonderful new handshakes.”

In the grand scheme of things, of course, the stakes surrounding handshakes may be pretty low. And yet those moments can present a clumsy terrain for the participants, with age, status and race among the potential distractions.

Silver is aware of all this, and he acknowledged that the handshake greetings he now engages in sometimes presented potential trip wires. He compared it to his experiences going to Europe for games and being unsure how many kisses on the cheek were acceptable.

At the Warriors’ ring ceremony last October, Silver gave dap to 11 players and gave a more traditional handshake to just one: Andrew Bogut, a 31-year-old center from Australia who happens to be the team’s lone white player.