NEW YORK — It will be up to the NBA to prove wrongdoing during its investigation of potential salary cap circumvention by the LA Clippers, owner Steve Ballmer and star Kawhi Leonard, league commissioner Adam Silver said Wednesday.
“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 during his annual news conference at the conclusion of the league’s board of governors meetings in midtown Manhattan. “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.”
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Silver said the league needs to look “at the totality of the evidence” rather than just “mere appearance.”
“Just by the way those words read, I think as a matter of fundamental fairness, I would be reluctant to act if there was sort of a mere appearance of impropriety. … I think that the goal of a full investigation is to find out if there really was impropriety. Also, in a public-facing sport, the public at times reaches conclusions that later turn out to be completely false. I’d want anybody else in the situation Mr. Ballmer is in now, or Kawhi Leonard for that matter, to be treated the same way I would want to be treated if people were making allegations against me.”
The league has already begun an investigation into whether Ballmer and the Clippers violated league rules because Leonard accepted a $28 million endorsement for a “no-show job” from Aspiration, a now-bankrupt green banking company in which Ballmer had invested.
The allegations first came out last week when an unnamed employee who purportedly worked for Aspiration told podcaster Pablo Torre that the payment to Leonard “was to circumvent the salary cap.”
Sources told ESPN that while there will be a thorough investigation of the matter by New York-based law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, there is no set deadline to find a conclusion.
There has been a healthy amount of debate about whether any decision by Silver — who reaffirmed Wednesday that he has “very broad powers in these situations” — would be dictated by whether the Clippers would have to prove their innocence, or whether the burden of proof was instead on the NBA to find wrongdoing.
Silver made it clear it will be the latter.
“I’ve been around the league long enough in different permutations of allegations and accusations that I’m a big believer in due process and fairness, and we need to now let the investigation run its course,” Silver said.
Silver also said that’s the opinion of Ballmer’s fellow owners.
“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. On one hand, of course, I work collectively for the 30 governors, but I have an independent obligation to be the steward of the brand and the integrity of this league.
“At least what those governors have said directly to me. To the extent we have had discussions [with the board of governors] — they’ve been limited — we communicated to them that we engaged Wachtell to do this investigation. And maybe I cut off any further conversations and said, ‘Let’s all withhold judgment, let’s do this investigation and then we will come back to you in terms of our findings.'”
Silver also hit upon a few other league topics:
ALL-STAR GAME FORMAT: Silver said the goal is to have the new All-Star Game format in place by the start of the regular season. He did confirm it will be shifting to a three-team format featuring 16 American players and eight international players at February’s All-Star Game in Los Angeles.
Silver said it is a priority to get the players engaged in the league’s marquee event.
“I think in the case of the NBA, this is what I’m trying to convey, particularly to younger players, is that All-Star is a big deal,” Silver said. “There’s been great traditions out there. People have great memories of these All-Star Games. It’s part of the fabric of this league, the excitement that comes from it and the engagement from our players.”
EUROPEAN LEAGUE: Silver said that discussions about the various things that will go into potentially creating an NBA-run league in Europe continue and that many different parts of the league office are involved in those talks.
Silver said he and deputy commissioner Mark Tatum traveled to Europe to meet with different stakeholders this summer. Silver also said discussions with the EuroLeague, the biggest league in Europe today, remain ongoing after his news conference earlier this year with FIBA secretary general Andreas Zagklis — who has openly feuded with the EuroLeague in the past.
Silver went on to say that the impression that the NBA is putting domestic expansion ahead of creating a European league is “not the case.”
“I see them as completely different entities,” Silver said, adding that there was no new news to report on the topic, though it again came up at the board meeting.
“Part of the difficulty in potentially assessing it is a sense of long-term value of the league, and a little bit maybe it’s a high-class problem, but as with some of the recent jumps in franchise valuations, that sort of creates some confusion in the marketplace about how you might even price an expansion franchise,” he said.
“I’ll only say it’s something that we continue to actively look at.”
BEASLEY INVESTIGATION: Silver declined to say whether there are any limitations on Malik Beasley’s availability while the NBA conducts its own investigation into gambling allegations against the free agent guard.
“I’ll only say there that the investigation is ongoing,” Silver said. “As I understand it, there’s still a federal investigation that’s ongoing of Malik Beasley as well. We will address whatever is presented to us in his case.”
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