Tim BontempsMar 27, 2025, 05:31 PM ET
Shut
- Tim Bontemps is a senior NBA creator for ESPN.com who covers the league and what is impacting it off and on the court docket, together with business time limit intel, enlargement and his MVP Straw Polls. You’ll be able to in finding Tim along Brian Windhorst and Tim MacMahon on The Hoop Collective podcast.
NEW YORK — NBA commissioner Adam Silver stated Thursday that the league will imagine the subject of enlargement extra totally as soon as the lately agreed-upon sale of the Boston Celtics is done.
“We are nonetheless within the strategy of digesting the Celtic transaction,” Silver stated after the league’s annual spring assembly of its board of governors in midtown New york. “There is no query {that a} primary transaction like that turns into related to enlargement. That deal has simply been introduced to us, so we are nonetheless examining it, and my sense is as soon as now we have been thru that procedure that we’re going to flip to it in a extra critical means.”
In the past, Silver stated publicly that each the collective bargaining settlement, which was once agreed upon two years in the past, and the league’s new nationwide tv contract, which was once agreed to remaining yr, needed to be finished to ensure that the growth to transport ahead. On the remaining board of governors assembly in September, Silver stated that the “plan was once to deal with [expansion] this season.”
Editor’s Choices
2 Comparable
In fresh months, resources have advised ESPN that the sale of the Celtics — which the group introduced can be to a bunch led by means of billionaire William Chisholm remaining week for a North American-record $6.1 billion — additionally can be a precursor to possible enlargement, as it will set a marker for the way a lot the ones groups may just generate in enlargement charges. Along with proceeding to vet the Celtics sale, Silver stated the league now should imagine the continuing uncertainty round regional sports activities networks and the lack of income that incorporates it — a subject it had no longer addressed prior to now.
The fashionable trust amongst resources is if the league does ultimately amplify, it will accomplish that by means of two groups — with Las Vegas and Seattle the robust favorites to land them.
Later in Thursday’s information convention, Silver was once requested about Seattle returning to the league. The SuperSonics’ remaining season within the Pacific Northwest was once 2008, earlier than the franchise moved to Oklahoma Town and become the Thunder.
“I want I may well be extra conclusive lately and say, ‘Right here it’s. This is the timeline,'” Silver stated.
“Having stated that, although, I’d simply say once more to our many enthusiasts in Seattle, and I pay attention from them regularly and the legacy of the Sonics continues to be very robust and it is an improbable basketball marketplace, is that we’re very fascinated with it. The truth that I feel that I am not being extra drawing close publicly does not imply we are not finding out it very intensively. We do not take the ones enthusiasts with no consideration. We are grateful that the pastime has remained over most of these years. And so I’d simply say the truth that we are not able to make any public bulletins with a selected timeline does not imply we do not care so much about the ones enthusiasts, and that we don’t seem to be very fascinated with the potential of the NBA to go back to Seattle.”
Enlargement was once one of the subjects Silver addressed as a part of a wide-ranging information convention that was once damaged up into two more or less 30 minutes portions, with the primary half-hour being dedicated to the league shifting ahead with its plans, along FIBA, to discover the opportunity of a brand new Eu league.
Different subjects incorporated:
• Silver stated there were no discussions of possible adjustments to the construction of group possession shifting ahead within the wake of the proposed sale of the Celtics, which incorporates non-public fairness fund 6th Side road purchasing 20 p.c of the group — the utmost quantity allowed below the league’s present construction.
He additionally was once requested if there have been any explicit written portions of the deal overlaying present proprietor Wyc Grousbeck, who has stated he will stay answerable for the group after former Dallas Mavericks proprietor Mark Cuban had stated the similar factor within the wake of promoting that franchise remaining yr. That briefly proved to not be the case as soon as Patrick Dumont assumed regulate of the franchise, after which remaining month Dumont licensed the lovely business of Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers.
“The Grousbeck circle of relatives and the consumer are nonetheless operating thru the ones preparations on precisely how that will paintings with regards to CEO roles and governor roles all the way through the transition,” Silver stated. “I feel the placement was once very other in Dallas.”
Silver additionally stated the league continues to be to start with phases of having a look on the deal, together with vetting the brand new homeowners.
• As for the opposite group lately up on the market, the Minnesota Timberwolves, Silver stated proprietor Glen Taylor continues to be mulling whether or not he’s going to attraction the arbitration ruling in prefer of Marc Lore and Alex Rodriguez remaining month, and that he’s nonetheless discussing choices with Lore and Rodriguez, as smartly. Silver stated on the All-Megastar Sport remaining month that he does not “see any explanation why” Lore and Rodriguez would not be licensed as the brand new homeowners in gentle of the arbitration ruling, which might in spite of everything carry an finish to a yearslong saga for regulate of the franchise.
• Silver stated that whilst he believes the league has made strides at the subject of tanking — from pulling down lottery odds to making the play-in match, the 65-game rule for awards and the participant participation coverage — that he understands why relegation is part of many leagues world wide.
“It comes right down to incentives,” Silver stated. “There is no doubt that incentives exchange on the finish of a season, particularly when you’ve got a draft that is perceived no longer simply with the highest pick out, however the best perhaps few alternatives is a surprisingly robust draft. That is some way, a sound means of rebuilding on this league. So I am not sitting right here announcing, ‘All proper, here is the brand new calibration to the draft lottery and that may clear up it.’ We do not need a brand new plan nowadays.
“I do not need a solution sitting right here lately as to what we are going to do rather than to mention that we acknowledge it is a subject and it is a subject for our enthusiasts. And so we are taking note of it.”
• Whilst Silver admitted the native media scenario is unclear with regards to the place the regional sports activities networks will land because the cable business is going thru ongoing adjustments, he stated he’s bullish at the NBA’s talent to derive worth from the placement as issues transfer ahead.
“We predict there is super alternative there,” Silver stated. “You may have bankruptcies of RSNs, different RSNs that experience close down, and I feel that is created, for lack of a higher time period, a large number of transactional friction of people that would in a different way have an interest. On the identical time, well known streaming services and products that just a yr in the past have been announcing they have got no real interest in are living sports activities at the moment are aggressively bidding on are living sports activities. So we see no explanation why the level there is that pastime on a countrywide foundation or perhaps a world foundation there would not even be on an area foundation.”
• Within the wake of Jontay Porter being thrown out of the league over playing — and the continuing investigation into abnormal wagering job on school video games that still incorporated some having a bet involving Miami Warmth guard Terry Rozier in 2023 — Silver stated he believes the legalization of playing has performed a component in bringing scenarios like that to gentle.
“I feel that we have now the power versus the previous days earlier than there was once legalized, fashionable legalized sports activities having a bet to be closely into the analytics of each sport,” Silver stated. “Having a look at any blip, anything else that is abnormal, I have when compared it previously to insider buying and selling. I imply, they catch insider buying and selling in large part since the analytics are such in lots of instances that they see abnormal job and so they examine it. So I feel right here, those techniques we’ve got in position, I feel are cutting-edge with regards to ferreting out abnormal job.
“So with regards to my religion someday, human beings are fallible. I do not need to counsel that we have got a super device and there don’t seem to be going to be any avid gamers that violate the foundations. I definitely have completely no foundation sitting right here lately to mention there are a couple of NBA avid gamers fascinated by anything else beside the point. If we had any impartial wisdom, we’d be performing on it. Regulation enforcement, they have got the suitable to carry legal prosecutions, however we’ve got the suitable to keep watch over our personal league. And so if we concept there was once anything else beside the point with that, if we have been conscious about avid gamers at the ground, we’d no longer be looking ahead to the realization of an investigation. We’d be performing on it.”
