Silver: Raptors’ Porter could face permanent ban

NBA commissioner Adam Silver said Wednesday afternoon that Toronto Raptors forward Jontay Porter, who is currently under investigation by the league following multiple instances of betting irregularities over the past several months, could be banned from the league permanently if what he’s accused of winds up being true, calling it a “cardinal sin.”

“I have an enormous range of discipline available to me,” Silver said at a hotel in midtown Manhattan on Wednesday, after the league’s annual Board of Governors meetings at the end of the regular season were conducted over the prior 24 hours. “But it’s a cardinal sin, what he’s accused of in the NBA, and the ultimate, extreme option I have is to ban him from the game.

“That’s the level of authority I have here. Because there’s nothing more serious, I think, around this league when it comes to gambling betting on our games. And that is a direct player involvement. And so, the investigation is ongoing, but the consequences could be very severe.”

Suspicions arose from prop bets involving Porter for games on Jan. 26 and March 20, in a story first reported by ESPN on March 25. Porter prop bets from those two dates wound up being the biggest moneymaker for each of them, according to DraftKings Sportsbook.

The NBA has had its own brushes with gambling in the past — namely the scandal involving former referee Tim Donaghy in 2007 — but the topic has exploded into the forefront of people’s thinking as gambling has rapidly been legalized in various states across the country over the past several years.

Silver said that he wishes there was a federal framework governing sports betting, rather than the patchwork state-by-state approach that currently exists, and that the NBA prefers it to be out in the open like this so that if irregularities like this do come up, they are more easily discovered.

But he also admitted that with how deep the relationships have grown between the NBA and other professional leagues, as well as media companies and gambling companies could lead to a potential rethink of parts of how those relationships look moving forward.

“At the end of the day, there’s nothing more important than the integrity of the competition,” Silver said. “And so, any issue raised around that is of great concern to me and to all commissioners, to all people who are safeguards, who are all people who are in a position and have a responsibility to safeguard the game. Again, this is a burgeoning industry in the United States. It’s been legal in other places in the world for decades. There’s lessons to be learned from the way that sports betting is monitored and regulated in other jurisdictions.

“And again, I think as these unfortunate examples come along, we may have to adjust our rules and our partner gaming companies and those companies that aren’t our partners may have to adjust their behavior as well.”

The other main topic of discussion Silver broached in his news conference was the ongoing dispute between Minnesota Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor and the two men who have spent the past three-plus years attempting to buy the team from him: Marc Lore and Alex Rodriguez.

Taylor announced last month that the agreement was off, and that he’d be keeping the team, and Lore and Rodriguez have publicly argued they still plan to finish off their purchase, which came in an unusual multi-step process over the past few years — rather than the quick transactions these deals typically wind up being.

Silver, however, said the two sides are in an agreed-upon mediation process to settle the matter, and doesn’t anticipate the NBA getting involved.

“It’s not clear whether there will be a role for the league to get involved,” Silver said. “Where it stands is Glen Taylor on one hand as the seller of the franchise, and then with Mark Lore and Alex Rodriguez as the buyers. They have a purchase agreement and there’s a dispute now in the purchase agreement and in their purchase agreement, they, in essence, pre-agreed to a dispute resolution mechanism that includes mediation and arbitration, and that’s where it stands. There is no role for the league in that process.”

He also went on to say that while the multi-step process Taylor, Lore and Rodriguez all agreed to was consistent with the league’s rules over the buying and selling of franchises, it is a process the league could be hesitant to allow someone else to pursue in the future to avoid specifically this type of situation cropping up again.

“This deal happened in the early days of the pandemic, when it was extraordinary circumstances, I think for everyone in our community,” Silver said. “I think lessons learned, too, in that as new situations evolve in the league as to what kind of transactions make sense. I think let’s wait to see how this one works out.

“But it’s certainly not ideal to have a stepped transaction like this. I mean, it met our rules from that standpoint. And it’s what Glen Taylor wanted and it’s what they were willing to agree to at the time. But I think once the dust clears on this deal, it may cause us to reassess what sort of transactions we should allow.”

Silver was also asked about the pronounced drop in fouls and free throws over the past couple weeks — a topic only exacerbated by Tuesday night’s game in Milwaukee, where the Bucks beat the Celtics in a game where the two teams combined to take two free throws, and the Celtics didn’t attempt a single one.

Both of those marks became new NBA records.

“Our teams are very happy with the state of the game, as am I,” Silver said. “And as I said, I think we’re seeing fantastic competition on the court. Last night, obviously an anomaly, but when you look at the data for this season, it’s true that as the season went on, foul calls came down, roughly, two fouls per team per game. That’s what we’re looking at. Just to put it in context, you know, roughly two fouls per team, per game.

“I think there was a sense earlier in the season that there was too much of an advantage for the offensive players, whether like [Golden State Warriors coach] Steve Kerr said, offensive players were using themselves as projectiles or hunting for fouls, however you want to call it. And so that was a point of emphasis on behalf of the league.

“We were transparent with our teams about that. Again, everyone can see what’s happening on the floor and make their own judgments about the calls being made. But, yes, you know, there was a bit of an adjustment made along the way. But again, the context is two fouls per team per game, and the end result most importantly, we think is a better game.”