The NBA\u2019s Board of Governors\u2019 fall meeting, starting Monday in New York, comes as the league deals with a handful of very public-facing issues, not the norm for the usually strictly business group.<\/p>\n
Chief among those is the fallout from commissioner Adam Silver\u2019s unprecedented penalties against the LA Clippers<\/a>. A year-long investigation by an outside law firm commissioned by the NBA determined that the Clippers engaged in multiple circumventions of the league\u2019s salary cap by facilitating with four companies looking to do business with the team to pay star forward Kawhi Leonard, in what the report called \u201coff-court opportunities,\u201d over multiple years.<\/p>\n The Clippers had, initially, decried what they termed a \u201cwitch hunt\u201d by the league, after Silver announced year-long suspensions of both owner Steve Ballmer and the team\u2019s president of business operations, Gillian Zucker, along with the docking of five future first-round draft picks between 2029 and 2034, and with a $30 million fine, for what it deemed was four separate cap circumventions \u2014 at the maximum $7.5 million per violation. The team vehemently denied that it had done anything wrong,<\/a> and strongly hinted at potential legal action.<\/p>\n But any long-lasting rancor between the team and the league seems to have been diffused by Ballmer\u2019s statement late Sunday night on social media<\/a>, in which the owner of the Clippers since 2014 said he would accept the NBA\u2019s penalties, has paid the fine, offered \u201csincere regrets,\u201d apologized to team employees and his fellow governors, and accepted responsibility \u201cas principal owner\u201d for the team\u2019s actions.<\/p>\n Silver has yet to speak publicly after the league\u2019s Sept. 2 announcement of the penalties. His news conference Tuesday afternoon, at the conclusion of the two-day meeting, will give him an opportunity to expand his reasoning for arriving at his decisions, which also included the suspension of president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank for six months without pay.<\/p>\n The Clippers and the penalties assessed to them are not specifically on the governors\u2019 agenda, according to two team executives with knowledge of the meeting schedule who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss publicly. The executives, however, expect there to be updates, perhaps in one of the board\u2019s governing committees, if not by Silver to the entire board.<\/p>\n In addition, the pending trade of Leonard to the Toronto Raptors<\/a> for Brandon Ingram, Gradey Dick, two future unprotected first-round picks, two first-round pick swaps and a second-round pick remains on hold after the Raptors announced a pause on the deal, agreed to at the end of June, because of uncertainty about Leonard\u2019s future availability. The NBA did not suspend Leonard or void his current contract, opting to fine him only $700,000 for his role in the cap circumventions. The league has said it will not stand in the way of the trade proceeding.<\/p>\n However, The New York Times reported last week that the Justice Department is now in the early stages of a criminal investigation<\/a> into the case, which would reportedly be conducted by the U.S. attorney\u2019s office in Brooklyn.<\/p>\n The board also is expected to continue to address two areas of potential expansion: the proposed NBA Europe deal and the potential domestic expansions into the Seattle and Las Vegas markets. In March, the league decided to focus on those two cities as potential expansion destinations<\/a>. Silver has repeatedly said he wants there to be clarity on whether the NBA will proceed with one or both cities to expand by the end of the calendar year.<\/p>\n The league is using investment bank PJT Partners as its strategic adviser for evaluating the Seattle and Vegas markets, the potential ownership groups in each city, existing arena infrastructure and the possible economic implications of expanding. A vote on domestic expansion is not expected.<\/p>\n PJT has\u00a0already vetted potential buyers in both markets,<\/a> with multiple bidders in Las Vegas submitting economic packages. Seattle\u2019s bid had centered on a single group, which has deep ties among its ownership to the NBA and is headed by Samantha Holloway, the owner of the NHL\u2019s Seattle Kraken franchise. Her group has control of both the Kraken and the refurbished Climate Pledge Arena, the former Key Arena site, which would house a potential NBA expansion team there. At least one more bidder, a private equity firm representing the Tulalip Tribes in Washington state<\/a>, also has expressed detailed interest in bringing an expansion team to Seattle, which would play a half-hour north of the city.<\/p>\n Silver has pushed hard for NBA Europe, the league\u2019s initiative that it hopes to open in the fall of 2027. The NBA has vetted multiple candidates for the proposed 16-team league, including 12 permanent members, with bids running from $500 million to as much as $1 billion per team, according to sources with knowledge of the discussions. NBA Europe has been expected to compete with the historic EuroLeague, whose team affiliations with the league run back, in some cases, more than a century.<\/p>\n Italian newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport reported last week that the NBA was exploring a potential offer to buy controlling interest in the EuroLeague, which was expected to be discussed at the NBA\u2019s board meeting this week. EuroLeague owners, La Gazzetta reported, are scheduled to meet in Lake Como, Italy, early next month. Sources who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they weren\u2019t authorized to speak publicly told The Athletic that the NBA has not made an offer for EuroLeague.<\/p>\n Because Ballmer is suspended, he won\u2019t attend the BOG meeting as the team\u2019s representative. Dennis Wong, the Clippers\u2019 minority owner, who owns 1 percent of the team, is the alternate governor. But while Wong was not implicated in the Wachtell, Lipton report, he was cited in the podcast \u201cPablo Torre Finds Out,\u201d in a series that was the catalyst for the league opening its investigation into the Clippers\u2019 practices.<\/p>\n In a\u00a0September 2025 episode of the podcast<\/a>, Torre reported that Wong invested $1.99 million into Aspiration, the company at the center of the initial probe into the cap circumvention in December 2022, just nine days before Aspiration \u2014 which was in the midst of its calamitous economic collapse \u2014 sent $1.75 million to Leonard\u2019s limited liability company. Wong had previously not invested in the company.<\/p>\n The board meeting also comes amidst unprecedented franchise purchases in the past few years, including the sales of the NBA\u2019s two most iconic franchises: the Boston Celtics and the Los Angeles Lakers. The Lakers have been sold twice within the last 14 months, first to billionaire Mark Walter, who owns MLB\u2019s Los Angeles Dodgers, the two-time defending World Series champions, and then to a group led by former Walt Disney executive Bob Iger and businessman Josh Kushner for $12.5 billion, a record for a U.S. sports franchise. Walter, though, sold under duress, amidst a federal investigation into his finances<\/a>.<\/p>\n