Category: Basketball

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said he has broad powers that could be wielded to punish the Los Angeles Clippers and owner Steve Ballmer if it is proven that they circumvented the salary cap to get Kawhi Leonard more money through an endorsement deal with a team sponsor. However, he also said he would be reluctant to use that power for the "mere appearance of impropriety."

Mostly, Silver sounded like a cautious, patient lawyer when speaking after the NBA's Board of Governors meeting on Wednesday.

"I'm a big believer in due process and fairness, and we need to now let the investigation run its course," Silver said.

When asked about possible punishments the Clippers could face if it is proven the franchise knowingly circumvented the salary cap, Silver sounded like a man who understands he has a hammer to bring down.

"My powers are very broad," Silver said. "Full range of financial penalties — draft picks, suspensions, et cetera. I have very broad powers in these situations."

However, sounded cautious about using that hammer. While the NBA's Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) says a case for cap circumvention can be based on circumstantial evidence — which is all that is public right now, although there is a flood of it — Silver sounded like a lawyer who wants something more concrete.

"We and our investigators look at the totality of the evidence... I would be reluctant to act if there was sort of a mere appearance of impropriety," Silver said. "I think that the goal of a full investigation is to find out if there really was impropriety."

The Clippers and Ballmer have vehemently denied any impropriety, Ballmer saying he was "dupped" by the company Aspiration and its CEO Joe Sanberg (who has pled guilty to bilking investors of $248 million).

The appearance of impropriety in this case is still pretty damning. In early August of 2021, Ballmer made a personal investment of $50 million in Aspiration, a "green bank" company planting trees to gain carbon credits they could sell to clients. A couple of weeks later, Leonard signed a four-year, $176 million max contract extension with the Clippers. By the opening of Clippers training camp that year, Aspiration was a $300 million key sponsor of the Clippers, as Ballmer was building the Intuit Dome and had made a priority of making it a green building. A couple of months later, Leonard formed an LLC and, through that, signed a $28 million endorsement deal with Aspiration. This deal eventually grew to $48 million after a later $20 million stock deal (stock that is now worthless as the company went bankrupt).

The core of the problem for the Clippers and Leonard is this: He did nothing, absolutely nothing, for this endorsement money. No appearances, marketing or advertising, not even a social media post. He got the money for nothing.

That all smells fishy, but proving that Ballmer and the Clippers knew about this or orchestrated it is a much higher bar. The original report from Pablo Torre and the Pablo Torre Finds Out podcast reported that there were seven people in the office who said they were told Leonard's endorsement deal was lined up to help the Clippers circumvent the salary cap. Okay, but investigators will want to know "told by whom?" and where did that person learn of it? What is the source of this knowledge, and is it verifiable?

There are too many coincidences here for this all to be random, but is it more likely that the Clippers orchestrated this, or that "Uncle Dennis" — Leonard's uncle and business manager, who had asked for “no show” endorsements before in Toronto — just worked this out with Aspiration, and the Clippers really did know nothing? Every option is on the table. All the existing evidence we know matters, but how much weight will Silver and the other owners give it?

"The answer is we're not a court of law at the end of the day, either," Silver said. "We have broad authority to look at all information and to weigh it accordingly."

Silver said that his cautious approach has been echoed by the other owners he has spoken to on the matter.

"At least what's being said to me is a reservation of judgment," Silver said. "I think people recognize that that's what you have a league office for. That's what you have a commissioner for, someone who is independent of the teams... At least what those governors have said directly to me, to the extent we have had discussions, they've been limited."

Some around the league feel, considering all that is already known, that there is a burden on the Clippers to prove they didn't put this together, or at least know about it. The NBA CBA suggests there is some burden on the Clippers. However, Silver said the burden of proof remains with the NBA and investigators.

"The burden is on the league if we’re going to discipline a team, an owner, a player or any constituent members of the league," Silver said. "I think as with any process that requires a fundamental sense of fairness, the burden should be on the party that is, in essence, bringing those charges."

It's possible that when all this ends, the NBA will realize its current system of oversight on player endorsements needs updating (something the NBA players' union would have strong opinions about). NBA owners may be hesitant to want to punish Ballmer if it sets a precedent where they could be in trouble if one of their sponsors goes rogue with a player. When asked about that oversight, Silver's patient, cautious side came to the front.

"Let's get through this investigation. We'll reassess," Silver said. "We'll see what happened here. Then we'll sit down both among our owners and then potentially with the Players Association because some of that is a function of collective bargaining, and see if there's additional things we need to do."

For now, Silver is willing to sit back and let the New York law firm of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz lead the investigation. What Silver does with that hammer he wields will depend on what the investigation finds.

Luka Doncic's run of dominant play at EuroBasket continued Wednesday, but this time it was not enough.

Doncic scored 39, with 10 rebounds and seven assists, and pushed Slovenia to a seven-point lead late in the third quarter. But then Germany's Tristan da Silva hit a half-court shot at the buzzer, and in the fourth the momentum swung to Germany, which pulled away for the 99-91 win.

Germany got 23 points and seven rebounds from Orlando's Franz Wagner, as well as 20 points and seven assists from Sacramento's Dennis Schroder. Center Daniel Theis added 15 points and nine rebounds for a deep German side that proved to be too much for Slovenia.

Germany, still undefeated at EuroBasket, will face a surprise Finnish team in the semifinals after Finland knocked off another upstart in Georgia, 93-79, in the other quarterfinal. This was another impressive game from Lauri Markkanen, who had 17 points and maybe, more importantly, four blocks in the win.

Mikael Jantunen, who played his college ball at Utah, led Finland with 19 points in the game.

Germany and Finland will face off in one EuroBasket semifinal on Saturday, while the other sees a showdown between undefeated Alperen Sengun and Turkey, and Giannis Antetokounmpo and Greece.

The legalization by 38 states and normalization by leagues and media of betting has sparked a rash of incidents for sports other than pro football.

On Wednesday, David Purdum of ESPN.com reported that the NBA is investigating free-agent guard Malik Beasley for gambling allegations.

The situation flows from suspicion of gambling on NBA games and prop bets during the 2023-24 season, when Beasley played for the Milwaukee Bucks.

Attorney Steve Haney told ESPN that Beasley is "fully cooperating" with the NBA's investigation.

The NBA's investigation is believed, per Purdum, to be in its final stages.

Beasley has been investigated by federal authorities over the same allegations. There have been conflicting reports as to whether Beasley has been cleared.

Last year, the NBA banned for life Toronto Raptors forward Jontay Porter. Last month, his brother (who also plays in the NBA) predicted that these incidents will continue.

“Think about it," Brooklyn Nets Michael Porter Jr. said, "if you could get all your homies rich by telling them, ‘Yo, bet $10,000 on my under this one game. I’m going to act like I’ve got an injury, and I’m going to sit out. I’m going to come out after three minutes. And they all get a little bag because you did it one game.”

To date, the NFL has avoided such problems. As far as we know. The possibility of a player in a fictional pro football league (not the NFL, wink) selling inside information to the mob is the premise of Big Shield, which you can instantly purchase in ebook form for only 99 cents.

Yes, I couldn't resist plugging the book. I wrote it because I'm concerned about the integrity of the game being undermined by a major scandal. And the story is aimed at getting those who may be tempted to trade inside information for easy money to realize that there's no such thing as easy money.

It happens at least once in almost every NBA game. At the end of a quarter or the first half, a player will get the ball in the backcourt with a second or so on the clock, take a dribble, and hesitate just a little in getting off a half-court heave so that the ball is in his hands when the buzzer sounds and the shot doesn't count, make or miss. The reason for this is that players know they are going to miss the shot, and they don't want it to count against their shooting percentage.

Starting this season, they will not — heaves at the end of quarters will be counted as a team shot attempt but not count against the player's shot total, a change the NBA owners approved on Wednesday, reports Shams Charania of ESPN. This was something some advanced NBA statistic sites, such as Cleaning the Glass, already did, now it will just be official with the league.

The hope is that this will lead to more players taking a legitimate shot attempt — albeit an unlikely make — at the end of quarters. The league would love to see more players like Boston's Payton Pritchard become specialists in trying to make these shots.

In other action at the Board of Governors meeting:

• Starting this season, when there is a coach's challenge of an out-of-bounds play, it will be the Replay Center official in Secaucus, not the on-court crew chief, who will determine whether a proximate foul should have been called. This is a change, previously the lead official of the game handled these reviews. However, the league wants to speed up the review process, so now the Replay Center will deal with these foul calls.

• Starting in the 2026-27 NBA season, only the championship game of the mid-season NBA Cup will be played at a neutral site (currently Las Vegas), with the semi-final games instead being hosted by the higher-seeded team in each conference in their home arena.

For this coming season the "old" format will remain in place, with the final four teams in the NBA Cup heading to Las Vegas for the semi-finals and championship game. This year, the semi-finals are scheduled for Saturday, Dec. 13 in Las Vegas, with the Finals on Tuesday, Dec. 16.

Last season, the semi-final games did not fill the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on a December Saturday, which raised concerns. There were some Hawks fans in the building for their game (a loss to the Bucks), but mainly because the Atlanta Falcons were in Vegas to take on the Raiders in an NFL showdown, so those fans were already in town. Having the semi-final games in home arenas will provide a better turnout and atmosphere.

That said, for players, the chance to get a few days in Las Vegas was a motivation to make the final four. Now they need to get to the championship game for that.

On Wednesday in New York, the NBA's Board of Governors — the 30 NBA owners — are meeting. While discussion of league rules and other details will be on the agenda, the big topic will be the report that the Los Angeles Clippers and owner Steve Ballmer circumvented the salary cap by Kawhi Leonard having a "no-show" endorsement deal with a team sponsor, a "green bank" company called Aspiration that has since gone bankrupt with the CEO pleading guilty to defrauding investors. The NBA is now investigating the charges, and when Adam Silver meets with the media on Wednesday, that will be the main topic of conversation.

A new report from Bruce Arthur of the Toronto Star says that when Leonard was a free agent in 2019, his uncle and manager Dennis Robertson — commonly referred to in league circles as Uncle Dennis — asked the Raptors for no-show endorsement deals at that time. As has been previously documented (and investigated by the league at the time), Uncle Dennis asked for a lot of things during that free agency.

Robertson asked for ownership stakes in outside companies: not just the (NHL's Toronto) Leafs, which he seemed to believe was separate, but with other companies with whom [Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment] had a relationship. And two, the Raptors were told they needed to match at least $10 million per year in extra sponsorship income. Teams are allowed to introduce players to team sponsors; teams cannot negotiate deals, and MLSE was aware of that fact.

But it didn't end there. As one source put it, when told about all the corporate sponsors in Toronto who would be happy to have Leonard as a pitchman, his camp said, "We don't want to do anything." Raptors representatives said any sponsor would want to shoot ads or arrange appearances; Robertson reiterated Leonard didn't want to do anything for the money.

That does sound awfully familiar, and for a lot of fans and people around the league it just adds to the wave of circumstantial evidence in this case. That said, a couple of things should be noted here:

• While the no-show endorsement part with Toronto is new, Uncle Dennis asking in 2019 for stakes in the franchise, exclusive use of planes, a home, and much more is well known and something the NBA knew about. Uncle Dennis's requests are the stuff of legend around the league. The NBA investigated this when the Clippers signed Leonard as a free agent and found no wrongdoing or illegal benefits.

• Even before Leonard was traded to Toronto in 2019, it was known around the league that he wanted to get back closer to where he grew up in Los Angeles. It was thought at the time that he would end up with the Lakers or Clippers as a free agent, and Leonard reportedly was not enamored with the idea of playing next to LeBron James, which gave the Clippers an edge. They pursued him hard, with Clippers' team executive Lawrence Frank conspicuously attending many Raptors games, both home and away, that season. Despite all the rumors and actions by Uncle Dennis at the time, Leonard's signing with the Clippers was not some out-of-the-blue surprise, and he signed a four-year max contract with the move.

The NBA's investigation could head in numerous different directions, depending on whether they find any genuine connection between Ballmer or another Clipper employee and this no-show endorsement deal. Ballmer and the Clippers have vehemently denied any knowledge of impropriety or connection to the endorsement deal. In the initial investigation reported by Pablo Torre on the Pablo Torre Finds Out podcast, he said he had seven different employees with Aspiration tell him this was about salary cap circumvention. This is where the NBA being a league run by lawyers — with an outside law firm running the investigation — will bog down in legal terminology. Employees at Aspiration being told by other people with the company that this was for salary cap circumvention does not prove the Clippers knew or participated in it (was it just an office rumor started by someone without direct knowledge?). It's not that these people are lying or doing anything wrong, but it's not the kind of direct evidence lawyers will demand. Also, another report surfaced that Aspiration gave other celebrities huge endorsement deals with little or no work required, however, as part of those contracts the endorsers then hired Aspiration back using part, but not all, of that endorsement money (which helped inflate the books for Aspiration, who could point to large contracts on their books). It's unclear if Leonard was involved in such a deal and, if so, whether the Clippers were aware of it.

When Mark Cuban appeared on Pablo Torre Finds Out to defend Ballmer, he suggested it was possible this was simply Uncle Dennis and a fraudulent company working together, and that the Clippers were genuinely unaware.

We simply have more questions than answers at this point. About all of it. The NBA's investigation will try to answer them, but it's possible that the evidence we currently have is basically all we will have. While that looks bad in the court of public opinion, whether it would be enough for other owners to bring the hammer down on one of their own is up for debate.

You can be sure Adam Silver will be asked about it on Wednesday in New York.