LAS VEGAS — The trade sending Kawhi Leonard back to Toronto will be on hold for a bit longer.
The NBA’s annual Board of Governors meeting is taking place at Summer League this week and a ruling on the investigation into the Clippers and failed startup Aspiration won’t be finalized before commissioner Adam Silver meets with the media on Tuesday night.
That doesn’t mean Silver will be short on topics to cover.
The league recently closed a round of bidding on teams for its prospective league in Europe and has seen a number of groups go public about their interest in bringing an expansion team to Las Vegas.
And Silver will likely be asked why it took nine days for the NBA to officially inform the Clippers and Raptors that their trade was on hold until the Aspiration investigation was completed.
“We don’t have a specific timeline for the conclusion of the investigation but expect the firm to finalize its work in the coming weeks,” a league spokesperson said in a statement.
On July 30, the Raptors agreed to trade Brandon Ingram, Gradey Dick, two unprotected first-round picks, two first-round pick swaps, and a second-rounder to the Clippers for Leonard, who is extension eligible and in the final year of his contract. The trade’s respective players had already gone to their new cities and taken physicals before the NBA intervened.
Coincidentally, the two teams played against each other on Monday at Summer League with Leonard courtside.
There was speculation in league circles that the investigation would wrap up ahead of Silver’s Summer League press conference to discuss the findings before the NBA’s calendar quiets down until September.
The postponement ensures that July and August will be more consequential than in past years.
Future Team Sales?
For the first time in years, Silver doesn’t have a team sale looming.
In March, the owners approved Tom Dundon as the newest governor of the Trail Blazers after the first step of his multi-tiered transaction closed.
More than 60% of NBA teams have changed hands since 2010, and the Trail Blazers, Celtics, Timberwolves, and Lakers were all sold in the past two years.
While in Vegas, Front Office Sports surveyed multiple front office executives to ask which team they expect to go on the market next. The top three answers? The Thunder, Grizzlies, and Pacers.
A year ago, longtime Oklahoma sportswriter Berry Tramel wrote that sources told him the Thunder’s ownership group, led by Clay Bennett, will want to sell the team “soon,” fresh off the franchise’s first championship since relocating from Seattle in 2008.
The Thunder are owned by The Professional Basketball Club LLC, which is Bennett and six other businessmen. For years the group tried to sell the roughly 20% stake owned by Aubrey McClendon before he died; the group ultimately absorbed it. All of the owners are 65 or older, and Bennett has had health issues over the years, though none recently.
After winning a championship as a non-luxury tax team, the Thunder enter next season with one of the highest payrolls in the NBA with extensions for Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren set to kick in, and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s coming in 2027. The Thunder are set to have a new arena open in 2028—most of which was paid for by the city—which adds to the franchise’s value.
“It reminds me a bit of the Celtics right now,” one Western Conference executive said of the Thunder. “All of those big contracts are on the books, but the first championship is out of the way.”
Executives who picked the Grizzlies cited the team’s attendance issues and market size as the main reasons for voting.
And then there’s the Pacers, who are the NBA team with the longest-tenured owner in Herb Simon. The shopping mall developer is 91 years old and is still the team’s governor. Simon bought the team with his late brother Mel and has owned it ever since. Simon has eight children but is still in charge of the team, which made a few executives vote for the Pacers as a possible dark horse to eventually hit the market.
Illinois NIL
There is also healthy representation from the college ranks in Vegas, with dozens of head coaches flying in to cheer on their former players in Summer League or connect with their program’s alumni.
Multiple college coaches told FOS that Illinois is capitalizing on its first Final Four run in roughly two decades, led by the ‘Balkan Five.’ The program always had strong resources, but now appears to have one of the best NIL war chests in the country.
“They have the best NIL for basketball in the Big Ten,” a longtime head coach told FOS. “There’s Ohio State for football and [Illinois] for basketball.”
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