NBA Commissioner Adam Silver announced that the league’s investigation into alleged salary cap violations by the Los Angeles Clippers is approaching its conclusion.
During remarks before Game 1 of the NBA Finals in San Antonio, Silver indicated the investigation is “close to the point now where I think we need to wrap this up.”
The league launched the investigation in September, hiring the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to examine whether the Clippers circumvented salary cap rules by arranging a $28 million endorsement agreement between star forward Kawhi Leonard and banking company Aspiration. The team maintained a long-term business relationship with the same company.
The banking firm has since filed for bankruptcy, and this week company co-founder Joe Sanberg was sentenced to 14 years in prison on wire fraud charges. Clippers owner Steve Ballmer claims he personally lost $60 million due to his involvement with Aspiration.
Regarding the law firm’s investigation, Silver explained, “They are doing the work independent of the league office, and my instruction to them is we can’t be investigating forever, but at some point, we have to wrap it up. But at the same time, the most important thing is that we get it right.”
“I think it’s clear they’re far along. I think those reports are (coming in) all the time from people who are being interviewed by them, and I think they understand that you can keep going on and on. But I think we’re close to the point now where I think we need to wrap this up because you also need finality. Their team has to understand what the situation is they’re going to be operating under, and so do the other 29 teams.”
Silver also discussed several other NBA topics during his appearance:
—League expansion decisions could be completed by year’s end.
“As I think everyone knows at this point, we are focused on Las Vegas and Seattle,” Silver stated. “There’s multiple groups interested in both cities. We are in discussions with them. The timeline is, as I’ve said before, it’s not a foregone conclusion that we will expand either in one city or both cities. But what we have told all interested parties, our anticipation is our (board of governors) will make a decision by the end of this calendar year.”
—The commissioner expressed confidence that recently implemented anti-tanking measures will prove effective.
“We found ourselves in a situation this year where all of a sudden it seemed like a third of the league maybe was responding in what an economist would say is very rational behavior but nontraditional behavior in terms of what they saw as a clear incentive to fall to the bottom of the standings,” Silver explained. “And it maybe or likely was compounded by the fact that there’s a perception of a very deep draft class this year. But we ultimately concluded that we needed to take immediate action.”
—The proposed NBA Europe structure would feature 12 permanent franchises, with four additional positions available for teams to earn through competition.
