Adam Silver holds court on biggest NBA issues, including Clippers investigation

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver spoke Saturday during All-Star Weekend about the league’s hot-button issues, including tanking, the lottery, expansion and the league’s pending investigation into whether the Clippers arranged a multimillion-dollar endorsement deal for Kawhi Leonard to circumvent the salary cap. 

When it comes to tanking, Silver, who fined the Jazz $500,000 and the Pacers $100,000 on Thursday for recently sitting star players in games, said he believes the problem is becoming increasingly pervasive. 

“We’ve got to look at some fresh thinking here,” Silver said. “What we’re doing, what we’re seeing right now is not working. There’s no question about it. Yes, is there more I can do? Have I attempted not only to respond to behavior we’ve seen but send a clear message that we’re going to be scrutinizing everything we see going forward? Absolutely.”

Silver added that the NBA Competition Committee began earlier this season “reexamining the whole approach to how the draft lottery works.” When asked if there have been discussions about taking draft picks away from teams that tank instead of fining them, he didn’t hesitate.  

“There is talk about every possible remedy now to stop this behavior.” Silver said.

As for expansion, when Silver was asked if reports were true about Seattle and Las Vegas being front-runners to secure new NBA franchises, Silver cautioned that nothing has been decided. 

“We will make decisions in 2026,” he said. “I think in fairness to the cities, Seattle and Las Vegas in particular, I’ve been very clear, I don’t want to tease teams. I don’t want to tease cities or mislead anyone. I think we wanted to get through collective bargaining, national television deals. We’ve done that, and now we’ve turned to it as a league.

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“My sense is at the March Board of Governors meetings we’ll be having further discussions around an expansion process. We won’t be voting at the March meeting, but we will likely come out of those meetings ready, prepared to take a next step in terms of potentially talking to interested parties.”

Silver also made it clear that the league isn’t necessarily looking to add two teams specifically, clarifying that an expansion “doesn’t have to be any number of teams.”

Meanwhile, the elephant in the room of All-Star Weekend is that while Clippers owner Steve Ballmer is showing off his $2 billion arena (Intuit Dome) that’s hosting the events, he and his team are being investigated regarding allegations that they circumvented the salary cap to retain Leonard by helping secure him a $28 million endorsement deal with the company Aspiration.

Ballmer and the Clippers have staunchly denied those allegations. And the NBA hired the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to investigate the matter. 

“I haven’t come to any decisions whatsoever yet on the Clippers matter,” Silver said. “… From everything I’ve been told, the Clippers have been fully cooperative. But as I said, I’m not involved day to day in the investigation.”

Silver added that the situation is “enormously complex.”

“You have a company in bankruptcy (Aspiration),” Silver said. “You have thousands of documents, multiple witnesses that have been needed to be interviewed.

“I will say, just in case anyone is wondering, the fact that All-Star is here this weekend has had no impact on the timeline of the investigation. Our charge to the Wachtell law firm is do the work and then come back and make recommendations to the league office, and that’s where things now stand.”

When Silver was asked to what extent he’s beholden to the CBA and the NBA’s Constitution in regard to any punishment that would be handed out for a salary cap circumvention, he was definitive. 

“I am completely beholden to the constitution and the CBA,” he said. “I believe in the rule of law. I have broad powers in certain areas, but those are broad powers that are granted to me by those very documents.”

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