The words everyone was hoping to hear and NBA commissioner Adam Silver is doubtless eager to say remain unspoken.
“My timeline remains this summer,” said Silver when asked if and when he was expecting a resolution to the question of whether the Clippers engaged in salary-cap circumvention when signing Leonard to a new contract extension in 2023 and to what degree Leonard was complicit if any did take place.
“We all have an interest in wrapping this up and I’m hopeful this will wrap up this summer.”
So sometime before training camp starts in late September, then?
There had been some faint hope that the league’s meetings, which provided Silver his first scheduled public forum since he last discussed the issue at the NBA Finals back on June 3, would act as natural deadline to resolve the now 10-month investigation. It was launched after podcaster Pablo Torre did a series of episodes reporting that the Clippers allegedly had directed $28 million to companies affiliated with Leonard over and above the three-year, $149.5-million deal he signed in 2024 via a fake sponsorship agreement.
As it has dragged on, frustration on all sides is beginning to mount.
“My understanding is (the law firm hired by the league to do the investigation) is now in the process of going through the information they’ve gathered and drawing conclusions from it,” said Silver.
“At the end of the day I’m the commissioner of this league, I’m the one who engaged them, so sure, I could tell them to stop (the investigation) … it’s going on longer than I would have hoped, there’s no question about that … (but) it’s a long process and it is complex. I understand why people who haven’t lived in these kinds of investigations are frustrated … but we want to respect everyone’s rights here.”
In the meantime, league business remains stalled.
Specifically, the previously agreed upon trade, where the Raptors hope to send Brandon Ingram, Gradey Dick and multiple draft assets to the Clippers in return for Leonard, remains on hold.
There is still optimism the deal will be completed in its original form. However when it was made clear that if any punishment from the investigation was assigned to Leonard — a lengthy suspension, for example — it would be a risk the Raptors would have to accept, Toronto then hit pause on the trade.
Silver emphasized that it wasn’t the league that paused the trade. He also stressed that the idea that Leonard would have to face potential consequences whether he was traded or not was not a secret.
“All I’ll say is the issues were well-known to the teams,” said Silver. “Even if you weren’t a sophisticated NBA team, the notion that … somehow all those issues would go away by virtue of him being traded, I just don’t find that credible … questions were asked and answered quickly by the league office.”
An interesting wrinkle emerged Tuesday when The Athletic reported that the investigation has been expanded to look at another potentially fraudulent endorsement deal as well as some improper expenses paid to Leonard by the Clippers.
There has been a lot of speculation that something must have changed between when the Raptors and Clippers began sharing the details of the trade with the league in late June — at which time the Raptors, per sources, were comfortable with the risk they were taking based on the due diligence they had done — and the team’s decision to pause the trade eight to 10 days later.
But according to a source close to the situation, the Raptors — having engaged with the league multiple times in the leadup to the trade — were comfortable going ahead with the deal until the NBA made clear on the trade call to finalize it that the risk of something happening to Leonard would have to be borne by the Raptors.
It was a more emphatic message than had been delivered during the more preliminary discussions that had taken place and the Raptors felt like there was no need to rush the deal until the full facts on the investigation were available. So they decided to wait, confident that they could finalize the trade at a later date. Training camp, after all, doesn’t open until Sept. 28.
All parties, meanwhile, seem to be going about their business. Leonard — who is now represented by a new agent and whose uncle, Dennis Robertson, hasn’t been as front and centre in his business dealings, per sources — was in Las Vegas to take in the Raptors’ Summer league game from a courtside seat Monday night, exchanging greetings with Raptors GM Bobby Webster and former Raptors part-owner Larry Tanenbaum and his wife Judy.
Similarly, Ingram and Dick have been in Vegas and around the Clippers. Per a source, the players involved in the trade have been advised to look for places to live and otherwise move ahead as if it were going to be completed.
Could the news that the investigation had been expanded — as reported by The Athletic — have been a factor in the league being more explicit about the risks facing the Raptors if they agreed to the trade?
It’s a possibility, but what is perhaps more likely is that when the trade for Leonard had shifted from a proposal to an agreement, the league felt the need to make it clear that the NBA would not be responsible for solving any issues between the Raptors and the Clippers once the deal was finalized
Some insiders speculated that what the league office was really trying to avoid was a situation similar to what happened when the Miami Heat acquired Terry Rozier from the Charlotte Hornets for a first-round pick along with Kyle Lowry at the trade deadline in 2024. Rozier was later arrested and indicted on gambling charges related to NBA games, and didn’t play for the Heat last season. There were questions about what the Hornets or the NBA knew about Rozier being under investigation when the trade happened. The Heat eventually had a second-round pick returned to them as compensation.
The thinking is the league went the extra mile to make sure all parties knew in this instance that trading for Leonard meant inheriting some risk.
How big a risk remains the question.
