SAN ANTONIO (AP) \u2014 The NBA’s hopes of starting a new independent league in Europe by the end of 2027 are on schedule, Commissioner Adam Silver said before the start of the NBA Finals on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n
That plan \u2014 a joint effort involving the NBA and FIBA, the sport’s global governing body \u2014 has been in the works for years, but is nearing a launch at a particularly exciting time for the game in Europe with the burgeoning superstardom of San Antonio star Victor Wembanyama.<\/p>\n
The unanimous Defensive Player of the Year this season has led the Spurs to the finals, and even 2:30 a.m. start times for games in his native France aren’t totally deterring plans for watch parties and other gatherings to celebrate Wembanyama’s first appearance in the NBA’s championship series.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are very much on schedule,” Silver said. “It is our hope and anticipation that that league will launch in the ’27-28 season in Europe. We are on track. Final bids from franchises are due at the end of this month, at the end of the month in June. We\u2019ve seen record interest and we\u2019re very excited about the ongoing opportunity and working closely with FIBA, our federation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wembanyama is going home to France next season, with the Spurs set to play two regular-season games against the New Orleans Pelicans, first in Paris on Jan. 14 and then in Manchester, England, on Jan. 17. Paris and Manchester are on the list of cities expected to be part of the planned league in Europe.<\/p>\n
Wembanyama and the Spurs played a pair of games in Paris in January 2025, with tickets for those matchups against the Indiana Pacers getting snapped up quickly. The NBA’s interest in expanding to Europe goes back long before Wembanyama’s arrival in the league, but his rise to stardom has clearly sparked additional interest in the NBA over in that part of the world.<\/p>\n
\u201cPresumably, we will be in position in the fall to award franchises,\u201d Silver said.<\/p>\n
Among other topics Silver discussed in his annual pre-finals news conference Wednesday:
\nDomestic expansion<\/p>\n
The NBA announced formal plans earlier this year to explore expansion in Seattle and Las Vegas, and Silver said that \u201cdiscussions are ongoing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Multiple groups, Silver said, are interested in having teams in those cities. But there is no timetable for when expansion could happen, though Silver remains committed to deciding if it will by the end of 2026 \u2014 as he has said multiple times before.<\/p>\n
“It’s not a foregone conclusion that we will expand … but what we’ve told all interested parties is our board will make a decision by the end of this calendar year,” Silver said.
\nClippers investigation<\/p>\n
The independent investigation into whether a $28 million endorsement contract between Kawhi Leonard and a California-based sustainability services company allowed the Los Angeles Clippers to circumvent league salary cap rules is ongoing, Silver said.<\/p>\n
But he sounds eager for a conclusion.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy instruction to them is we can\u2019t be investigating forever. At some point you have to wrap it up,” Silver said. “But at the same time, the most important thing is that we get it right.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy job is to follow the facts and what essentially happens here is that a factual report together with findings will be made by this independent firm. That\u2019s presented to me. It\u2019s then ultimately my role to determine what the appropriate discipline, if any, should be meted out based on their findings.\u201d<\/p>\n
Silver added that he thinks the league is \u201cclose to the point now where I think we need to wrap this up\u201d for a number of reasons, namely the Clippers need to know what \u2014 if anything \u2014 will happen, as do the league’s other 29 teams.<\/p>\n
The Clippers have steadfastly denied wrongdoing since the story was first reported last year by journalist Pablo Torre.
\nHonoring Stern<\/p>\n
The NBA still doesn’t have a major award named for former Commissioner David Stern, who retired in 2014 and died in 2020.<\/p>\n
The league has wanted to change that for years. It’s an interesting dilemma \u2014 trying to find an award important enough to bear his name, Silver said of his former boss.<\/p>\n
\u201cI almost think there\u2019s nothing that we can do in some ways that will ultimately feel that he\u2019s getting his just due. … We\u2019re going to come up with the right way to honor him,” Silver said.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nba<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" SAN ANTONIO (AP) \u2014 The NBA’s hopes of starting a new independent league in Europe by the end of 2027 are on schedule, Commissioner Adam Silver said before the start of the NBA Finals on Wednesday night. That plan \u2014 a joint effort involving the NBA and FIBA, the sport’s global governing body \u2014 has … Continue reading Commissioner Adam Silver, at finals, says NBA continues to move toward league in Europe<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1452],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1512346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":true,"date":"2026-06-06 03:46:18","action":"change-status","newStatus":"trash","terms":[0],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1512346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1512346"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1512346\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1512347,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1512346\/revisions\/1512347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1512346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1512346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ktbb.com\/post\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1512346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}