NEW YORK — Adam Silver was far from rattled. In fact, sitting in the second row of the same midtown Manhattan ballroom where the NBA commissioner has routinely addressed a media audience following Board of Governors meetings, I was struck by how Silver took the podium behind that blue, white and red logo as if there hasn’t been deafening noise alleging a series of events that — if proven true — would amount to perhaps the largest roster-building scandal in American professional sports history.
Silver was nonchalant as he delivered his opening remarks, ranging from comments on the league’s new media partners to the prospect of launching NBA Europe and the state of expansion. There was no grand statement about the elephant in the room with the enormous claws.
We’re talking, of course, about the considerable circumstantial evidence revealed by the
Finds Out podcast, which appears to have connected plenty of dots between LA Clippers owner Steve Ballmer and Kawhi Leonard in an alleged salary-cap circumvention scheme to pay the All-Star forward millions beyond his max-salary contract. Torre had a new episode out Thursday morning, immediately after this week’s BOG meetings, with further allegations that the Clippers were indeed connected to Leonard’s reported $28 million endorsement deal over four years with
sustainability-focused financial company Aspiration … after the company agreed to a $300 million sponsorship deal with the Clippers to provide their jersey patch … and after Ballmer himself invested $50 million in Aspiration.
Even before Torre’s latest podcasted burst of reporting, judging from fan response on social media as well as my many conversations with various sources across the NBA map — and we’re talking ownership-level sources, longtime agents, salary cap strategists, coaches and more — there is an undeniable sense that many around the league regard the Clippers as guilty until they are proven innocent.
Yet that characterization certainly does not apply to Silver.
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