LAS VEGAS — The Kawhi Leonard investigation is closing in on the one-year mark and nobody seems to know when it ends. Not the teams. Not the league. Not even Adam Silver.
The NBA commissioner addressed reporters Tuesday night at the Board of Governors press conference and made one thing clear: the league isn’t the one holding things up. That honor goes to Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, the same law firm that spent 10 months digging into former Suns owner Robert Sarver. They are now doing the same with Leonard, the Clippers and a reported no-show endorsement deal that smells like salary cap circumvention.
The timeline Silver keeps pointing to is this summer. He said it again in Las Vegas.
“My timeline remains this summer,” Silver said. “As you know, I am not conducting the investigation, nor is the league office. That’s being conducted by the Wachtell law firm independent of the league.”
A Trade in Limbo
The Clippers and Raptors agreed to a deal on June 30 that would send Leonard back to Toronto. Then Summer League started and reports surfaced that the trade was on ice. Not from league intervention though. Silver wanted to clear that up fast.
“I just want to clarify so everyone understands: The league did not pause the trade,” Silver explained. “The parties to the trade made a decision not to go forward, given that the investigation remained open and any possible impact on Kawhi or his contract was yet to be known. They chose not to live with that uncertainty.”
So the Clippers are still making moves and talking about roster changes with the expectation Leonard leaves. The Raptors are waiting. And then there’s the weird scene at Summer League where Leonard showed up courtside at a Raptors game with former owner Larry Tanenbaum and his new teammates. Brandon Ingram and Gradey Dick watched a Clippers game together. Dick even ran through a workout at a local high school after practice.
Another Investigation?
Just when it felt like this thing might wrap up, reports out of Las Vegas Tuesday suggested a second investigation has opened into Leonard and a different endorsement deal that nobody had reported before. Silver said he doesn’t know exactly what will be in the final report because he hasn’t seen it yet.
“I do get regular updates from our general counsel, who is Rick Buchanan, and he deals with Wachtell on a daily, if not weekly basis,” Silver said. “But my understanding is that Wachtell is now in the process of going through the information that they have gathered and drawing conclusions from that information. And I think, yes, it is realistic to think that this can be wrapped up, and I would say needs to be wrapped up, before the beginning of the next season.”
He also made a point about due process. Said he could tell Wachtell to stop but that would hurt their credibility. The firm wants a complete understanding of what happened. Bankruptcy courts and reluctant witnesses have slowed things down.
“I understand why people who haven’t lived in these kinds of investigations are frustrated,” Silver said. “But also, on one hand, we want to respect everyone’s rights here. Certainly, if any of us were being investigated, we would want a certain standard to be met and a standard of due process with presumption of innocence.”
The Clippers and Raptors will just have to wait. Nobody knows how much longer.
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