After Wednesday’s NBA Board of Governors meeting, Adam Silver was asked to characterize the feedback he has received from other owners in response to allegations that the Los Angeles Clippers may have circumvented the salary cap with Kawhi Leonard’s $28 million endorsement deal with Aspiration.
Silver suggested that he limited the discussion of the topic amongst the governors as he wants to let an independent law firm, Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz,
“At least what’s being said to me is a reservation of judgment,” said Silver. “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, they’ve been limited. We communicated to them that we engaged Wachtell, as I said earlier, 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.”