Silver says little about Twitter tiff
OAKLAND, Calif. — NBA commissioner Adam Silver, in his state of the league talk at the NBA Finals on Thursday, was asked about the Twitter controversy raging in Philadelphia. He spoke on the matter.
And didn’t say a heckuva lot. The league is monitoring the situation and hopes for a quick resolution.
In other news, famine and disease are bad.
“For the league, there is always that balance of speed and doing things in a deliberate and appropriate way. So I have talked to management at the 76ers, and the notion here was let’s find out what’s going on,” Silver said. “The first thing we have to do here is determine what the actual facts are in this circumstance.
“I know the first thing that Josh Harris and his ownership group did was when presented with that story, which I believe came as a surprise to them, was to engage an outside law firm, a New York firm that specializes in these types of investigations,” Silver continued, “and said, ‘Here’s all the information we have. Our organization, all of us are available to you, and I know that includes Bryan Colangelo, and with deliberate speed, but don’t cut any corners, let us know what’s going on. ... I have no information beyond that other than that the investigation is underway.” A few other items of note addressed by the commish:
You don’t like seeing the Cavaliers and Warriors constantly in The Finals? Well, then teams should spend their money more wisely and prudently. And Silver suggested a hard salary cap, like in football, and a measure the players have bitterly fought, might be the way to go.
“Ideally, at least from the league standpoint, and these are things we need to talk to our Players Association about, you still have two teams that are significantly above, not just the cap, but the tax,” Silver said. “So one of, presumably, the elements that creates a bit more parity in the NFL, one of the factors other than the game, is they have a so-called hard cap. We don’t have that.”
Silver said with more states offering legalized sports gambling, the league wants a piece of the action to offset its additional costs.
“One of the issues we had on the table and have been seeking is a so-called ‘integrity fee.’ And the notion of the integrity fee is that, as we’re now dealing potentially with 50 different jurisdictions, all with differing permutations of sports betting law, it’s going to dramatically increase the enforcement cost for the league office,” Silver said. “So we think the integrity fee is something we’re entitled to because we have the additional cost.”