INGLEWOOD, Calif. — “Good afternoon, everyone,” said NBA spokesman Tim Frank and just like that the most interesting Adam Silver news conference in years was underway. Tanking? Cap circumvention? Expansion? You got questions, Silver (sort of) has answers.
How about tanking? The integrity of the league has been widely questioned in recent days. Silver has dealt with tanking before but never this early and never this egregious. On Friday, Silver slapped Utah with a $500,000 fine for intentionally trying to throw games last week and Indiana $100,000 for doing its best not to be competitive.
Tanking, Silver reminded a large roomful of reporters on Saturday, is nothing new. “It’s been part of this league for a long time,” Silver said. Still, nearly a third of the league entered the All-Star break with no interest in winning a single game in the second half of the season. “Are we seeing behavior that is worse this year than we’ve seen in recent memory?” asked Silver. “Yes, is my view.”
Is there a fix? Silver insists everything—fines, even stripping draft picks—is on the table. But bad teams, particularly small-market bad teams, need an avenue to rebuild. And currently that avenue is a high pick in the draft. It is, as Silver said, “a bit of a conundrum.”
“Part of the problem is if you step back, the fundamental theory behind a draft is to help your worst-performing teams restock and be able to compete,” Silver said. “The issue is if teams are manipulating their performance in order to get higher draft picks even in a lottery, then the question becomes, even if teams were rewarded for draft picks purely according to predicted odds of the lottery, are they really the worst-performing teams?
“My sense is, talking to GMs and coaches around the league, that there’s probably even more parity than is reflected in our records. That goes to the incentive issue. It’s not clear to me, for example, that the 30th-performing team is that much measurably worse than the 22nd-performing team, particularly if you have incentive to perform poorly to get a better draft pick.”
It will be addressed, Silver promised. The NBA clearly isn’t comfortable regularly making the kind of judgment calls it did with the Jazz and Pacers. “It will lead to very unhealthy relationships between us and our teams,” Silver said. Fresh thinking, he said, is what is needed. “What we’re doing, what we’re seeing right now is not working,” said Silver. “There’s no question about it.”
Cap circumvention? The Clippers—your host for the 2026 All-Star weekend—have been in the league’s crosshairs since journalist Pablo Torre reported (and reported and reported) on L.A.’s alleged attempt to funnel money to Kawhi Leonard through a now-defunct environmental company. The NBA outsourced its investigation to its preferred collection of sawbones (Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz), which Silver said is continuing its work.
“From everything I’ve been told, the Clippers have been fully cooperative,” Silver said. “I think, as I’ve said before, it’s enormously complex. You have a company [Aspiration] in bankruptcy. You have thousands of documents, multiple witnesses that have been needed to be interviewed.
“I will say, just in case anyone is wondering, the fact that All-Star is here this weekend has had no impact on the timeline of the investigation. Our charge to the Wachtell law firm is, do the work and then come back and make recommendations to the league office, and that’s where things now stand.”
And have there been any decisions made as to what the NBA would need to see to determine a rules violation took place?
Said Silver, “I haven’t come to any decisions whatsoever.”
Expansion? Much friendlier territory, though Silver didn’t reveal much there, either. Most of the NBA is anticipating a two-team expansion before the end of the decade, with Las Vegas and Seattle the front-runners to land new teams. Silver said discussions will pick up in March, at the NBA’s next Board of Governors meeting, with decisions made later this year.
“I’ve been very clear I don’t want to tease teams,” Silver said. “I don’t want to tease cities or mislead anyone … I think the logical next move would be to say, all right, we’ve had those discussions internally, we’ve made decisions about cities to focus on and what the opportunity is, and now we’ve got to go out into the marketplace. I think that’s probably the most important step, to find out who is potentially interested in owning a franchise in particular cities, what’s the value of that franchise. There’s some work to do in terms of potential conference realignment. That’s the next step there.”
On the topic of relocation, Silver was more definitive.
“Relocation is not on the table right now,” said Silver.
New Orleans, Memphis, Portland. Breathe easy. For now.
Takeaways? Not many. Silver is ticked off about tanking but has not figured out the right way to handle it. He’s punting on all questions about the Clippers until the outside investigators present him with their findings. The NBA is inching closer toward expansion but isn’t quite there yet.
Silver did find time to mention a call he had with Bob Cousy, the ex-Celtics guard, 97 years old and thriving. The conversation, Silver said, got around to the globalization of the game, how the NBA had all of two international players in the league in 1950–51 and 135 today.
“Bob and I were joking, so 75 years into the league, it may be time to try a new format, and hence tomorrow, you’re going to be seeing the USA vs. World,” Silver said. “Something many people have been asking for for a long time.”
The Cooz is down with the new format. Good enough for me.
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