He slept very little over there. Adam Silver has been stateside for a bit now, and yet the timeline still feels blurry, in the way it can when you’re back from traveling on the other side of the world. He knew he didn’t do much sleeping, as the NBA tried to diplomatically ease its way out of an unexpected, contentious showdown with China.

“I’m not a good sleeper to begin with,” the 57-year-old basketball commissioner admitted. The 12-hour time difference between Shanghai, where he had been, and NBA HQ in New York City, meant...