Silver discusses 76ers, gambling before Finals
OAKLAND, Calif. — Adam Silver has encouraged the Philadelphia 76ers to quickly but thoroughly resolve the investigation into whether team president Bryan Colangelo used Twitter inappropriately.
It’s a story the NBA commissioner acknowledged was not one he wants to be thinking about during the league’s title series.
Silver, speaking Thursday before Game 1 of the Cleveland-Golden State matchup at the NBA Finals news conference, said he has talked with 76ers officials after the story about five Twitter accounts and how they were used was broken by The Ringer earlier this week.
“Here we are, Game 1 of the Finals, it’s not necessarily something that we want to be talking about,” Silver said. “But it’s the reality of this league. And so I have no information beyond that, other than that investigation is underway.”
The 76ers retained an independent law firm to determine whether Colangelo used the Twitter accounts. The situation could overshadow Philadelphia’s efforts this summer to land any of the top players who will be free agents — a list that includes LeBron James, who’s in the title series for the eighth consecutive year.
Among the targets of harsh or critical comments on those Twitter accounts
was Philadelphia center Joel Embiid, who has said he does not believe that Colangelo wrote the tweets and dismissed the story as “insane.” Colangelo acknowledged using one of the accounts to monitor NBA happenings.
“Let’s find out what’s going on,” Silver said. “We have to separate the chatter and sort of what either fans, or frankly the media, are saying from the facts. The first thing we have to do here is determine what the actual facts are in this circumstance.”
Silver also touched on sports gambling.
There will be wagering on Game 3 of the Finals, at least in Delaware casinos. That state’s officials have announced that full-scale sports betting will begin there at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, one day before the series between Golden State and Cleveland shifts to the Cavaliers’ home floor.
Delaware is the first state to take advantage of a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that now permits states to allow sports wagering. Delaware has been permitted to offer parlay wagers on NFL games since 2009 and has had sports betting legislation on its books for nearly a decade. Other states are trying to follow suit quickly.
The NBA has told states it is seeking a 1 percent cut of betting, which it is calling an “integrity fee” to help offset the costs of enforcement incurred by the league office and also to serve as a royalty.
“The real issue as we move to new jurisdictions that are legalizing sports betting is access to information,” Silver said. “That’s one of the things we have sought in model legislation … and so what we can do is going to depend in large part on the quality of the information we can get from these states.”
Silver said the NBA game is the league’s “intellectual property, and we think we should be compensated for it.”
Discussing league expansion, Silver said there are no plans to add more teams, though he lauded the success of the NHL’s first-year Vegas Golden Knights, who are in the Stanley Cup final against the Washington Capitals.
He also congratulated Ted Leonsis, who owns both the Capitals and the NBA’s Washington Wizards.
“Invariably, it’s only natural for any business to grow and expand at some point,” Silver said.