STATE OF THE GAME

Commissioner Adam Silver begins the 2025-26 NBA season fighting for fans' attention with an active salary-cap circumvention probe into the Clippers, a new broadcast deal introducing NBC and Amazon while saying goodbye to TNT, and another All-Star Game format

- BY Chris Mannix

AMONG THE things Adam Silver expected to be dealing with in his 12th season as NBA commissioner, an alleged case of salary cap circumvention involving one of the NBA's best players, its wealthiest owner and a bankrupt climate-conscious financial services company wasn't one of them. At least not until an episode of the Pablo Torre Finds Out podcast implicated Clippers owner Steve Ballmer in an alleged scheme to skirt salary rules by funneling money through a firm that sold carbon offsets before the company went belly-up. (Ballmer denies the team circumvented the cap.) "This was not something that was on our radar," says Silver. "We will get to the bottom of it."

While Silver has shifted the Clippers’ case to Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, its go-to law firm for sticky investigations, he still has plenty on his plate. The league's new national broadcast deal has fans scrambling for channel guides. The failing of regional networks has more reaching for their wallets. Internally, the NBA continues to debate the value (or lack thereof) of expansion, the future of the All-Star Game and how to keep sports gambling from infecting the integrity of the game. Silver addressed all that and more in his annual State of the NBA sit-down with SPORTS ILLUSTRATED.

SPORTS ILLUSTRATED: You said you wanted to see the "totality of the evidence" before making any judgment on whether or not the Clippers intentionally circumvented the salary cap. Some team executives are asking what you need to see to determine if the team cheated?