The NBA’s Board of Governors are scheduled to meet in New York next Monday and Tuesday (Sept. 14-15), according to ESPN’s Brian Windhorst, who writes that this meeting of team governors could prove to be especially consequential.
As Windhorst details, there are three major storylines that will likely take a step forward during or after these Board of Governors meetings.
One of those storylines to watch is related to the sanctions levied against the Clippers after the NBA determined that the team violated the league’s salary cap circumvention rules. Although the league announced last Wednesday that its ruling was binding, commissioner Adam Silver has yet to publicly discuss the decision and figures to do so for the first time next week. The Clippers, in turn, have yet to publicly stand down and accept the NBA’s penalties, having put out two statements last Wednesday indicating that they planned to fight the ruling and were considering legal action.
The Clippers have been mum on the matter since then and also haven’t completed their agreed-upon Kawhi Leonard trade with Toronto, despite the fact that the Raptors and Leonard are reportedly ready to move forward. It’s unclear what their next move will be.
While the five forfeited first-round draft picks, $30MM fine, and lengthy suspensions for team owner Steve Ballmer, president of business operations Gillian Zucker, and president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank have generated more headlines, Windhorst says executives around the league are curious about what the NBA’s five-year “compliance and monitoring program” for the Clippers will entail.
“Are they going to be reading all their emails, reading their texts, listening to their phone calls?” one general manager asked Windhorst. “I have no idea what that (penalty) means.”
Another major topic of discussion during next week’s Board of Governors meeting will be where things stand with NBA Europe. According to Windhorst, the NBA is still preparing to move forward on its new European league, and the plan is for it to launch in the fall of 2027, with 12 permanent teams and four additional rotating spots.
While NBA Europe is expected to feature some newly established clubs, the NBA’s preference would be to join forces with the EuroLeague in order to bring in some of the top existing European teams as well. EuroLeague team owners are scheduled to meet on October 5 to discuss whether or not to team up with the NBA on its FIBA-backed league and are believed to be waiting on a formal offer from the NBA, Windhorst writes.
Finally, potential NBA expansion to Las Vegas and/or Seattle figure to be on the docket next Monday and Tuesday as well. The league has been vetting potential ownership groups in both markets over the course of the past few months and there’s a chance that team governors will vote next week on whether or not to move forward on expanding beyond the NBA’s 30 current teams.
According to Windhorst, some teams have been projecting an expanse fee payout of $500-600MM for each current franchise, which would work out to $15-18 billion in total expansion fees for two new teams. The expectation has long been that the Vegas number would come in higher than the one for a Seattle franchise.