By TIM REYNOLDS AP Basketball Writer
SAN ANTONIO — NBA commissioner Adam Silver declined to put a timeline on the conclusion of the investigation of the Clippers and their potential salary cap circumvention, but he said the time to “wrap it up” is drawing near.
“The investigation has been conducted by a law firm independent of the NBA,” Silver said Wednesday, prior to Game 1 of the NBA Finals between the San Antonio Spurs and New York Knicks. “Yes, ultimately we’re paying their bills, but 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 reading 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.”
The ongoing independent investigation, led by the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, began in September and is focused on whether a $28 million endorsement contract between Clippers star Kawhi Leonard and a California-based sustainability services company Aspiration allowed the team to circumvent league salary cap rules.
Silver sounds eager for a conclusion.
“My job is to follow the facts and what essentially happens here is that a factual report together with findings will be made by this independent firm,” he said. “That’s presented to me. It’s then ultimately my role to determine what the appropriate discipline, if any, should be meted out based on their findings.”
The Clippers, who had a separate $300 million, 23-year endorsement deal with Aspiration, have steadfastly denied wrongdoing since the story was first reported last year by journalist Pablo Torre.
Clippers owner Steve Ballmer, who invested $60 million in Aspiration, has denied he had knowledge of Leonard’s deal or that he directed the company to strike one with the team’s best player.
Aspiration has since gone bankrupt. The company’s co-founder, Joe Sanberg, was sentenced to 14 years in prison on Monday after pleading guilty to two counts of wire fraud.
Silver also touched on a few other topics, including NBA Europe, possible expansion teams for Seattle and Las Vegas and efforts to curb teams tanking.
NBA EUROPE
The NBA’s hopes of starting a new independent league in Europe by the end of 2027 are on schedule, Silver said.
That plan – a joint effort involving the NBA and FIBA, the sport’s global governing body – has been in the works for years, but is nearing a launch at a particularly exciting time for the game in Europe with the burgeoning superstardom of Spurs star Victor Wembanyama.
The unanimous Defensive Player of the Year this season has led the Spurs to the Finals, and even 2:30 a.m. start times for games in his native France aren’t totally deterring plans for watch parties and other gatherings to celebrate Wembanyama’s first appearance in the NBA’s championship series.
“We are very much on schedule,” Silver said. “It is our hope and anticipation that that league will launch in the ’27-28 season in Europe. We are on track. Final bids from franchises are due at the end of this month, at the end of the month in June. We’ve seen record interest and we’re very excited about the ongoing opportunity and working closely with FIBA, our federation.”
Wembanyama is going home to France next season, with the Spurs set to play two regular-season games against the New Orleans Pelicans, first in Paris on Jan. 14 and then in Manchester, England, on Jan. 17. Paris and Manchester are on the list of cities expected to be part of the planned league in Europe.
Wembanyama and the Spurs played a pair of games in Paris in January 2025, with tickets for those matchups against the Indiana Pacers getting snapped up quickly. The NBA’s interest in expanding to Europe goes back long before Wembanyama’s arrival in the league, but his rise to stardom has clearly sparked additional interest in the NBA over in that part of the world.
“Presumably, we will be in position in the fall to award franchises,” Silver said.
DOMESTIC EXPANSION
The NBA announced formal plans earlier this year to explore expansion in Seattle and Las Vegas, and Silver said that “discussions are ongoing.”
Multiple groups, Silver said, are interested in having teams in those cities. But there is no timetable for when expansion could happen, though Silver remains committed to deciding if it will by the end of 2026 – as he has said multiple times before.
“It’s not a foregone conclusion that we will expand … but what we’ve told all interested parties is our board will make a decision by the end of this calendar year,” Silver said.
DRAFT REFORMS TO CURB TANKING
Last week, Silver’s proposed reforms to the NBA’s draft lottery aimed at curbing tanking were passed by the league’s board of governors.
“Tanking is not a new issue for this league,” Silver said. “I think maybe what surprised us all a little bit is how quickly it became acceptable behavior in this league. I think it used to be limited, frankly, to a small group of teams. I think there was – I think I could genuinely stand up and talk about rebuilding and not say ‘tanking,’ and it was practiced in a different way. I don’t know how else to say it.
“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. 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.”
HONORING STERN
The NBA still doesn’t have a major award named for former Commissioner David Stern, who retired in 2014 and died in 2020.
The league has wanted to change that for years. It’s an interesting dilemma – trying to find an award important enough to bear his name, Silver said of his former boss.
“I almost think there’s nothing that we can do in some ways that will ultimately feel that he’s getting his just due. … We’re going to come up with the right way to honor him,” Silver said.