Adam Silver fell out of the feckless tree and hit every branch

The Kawhi Leonard trade is on hold while the NBA sorts out the Aspiration fake-tree-and-fake-endorsement scandal. It's starting to feel like Adam Silver is way out of his depth.

Good morning. Let's basketball.

Last week, the Toronto Raptors stunned the world by trading Brandon Ingram, Gradey Dick and picks for Kawhi Leonard, and then Kawhi Leonard stunned the world by being super happy about the return to Ontario. The Raptors were then rumo(u)red to be on the verge of handing Kawhi a two-year extension.

There were some funny conspiratorial comments floating around that this was how the NBA was adjudicating the Aspiration scandal: Adam Silver forced the Clippers trade Kawhi to Toronto, the most aggrieved party in the potentially crooked 2019 free agent recruitment process, and would later "cancel" the draft equity included in this deal to punish L.A. and make the Raptors whole. And Kawhi had to pretend to be happy about it. The conspiracy was funny and impractical – David Stern swinging that might be believable, but no chance with Silver – and, in the end, nonsense. But there was definitely some interest and intrigue around how the trade would impact the still-pending Aspiration investigation, or vice versa.

Last Thursday, the plugged-in Michael Grange of Sportsnet reported that the Raptors checked with the league on that very topic before agreeing to the deal.

Per sources, the Raptors “did their due diligence” with the NBA prior to making their most recent trade for Leonard and the guidance they received made them confident that they could acquire the former Clipper and not have it blow up in their face if Leonard was — as an example — facing a lengthy suspension.

Well, someone at the league office offered some bad guidance, because this news broke on Thursday.

The Clippers, in a statement to ESPN on Thursday, said the trade "can only be finalized if the Raptors' ownership group assumes the risk of penalties related to Kawhi's contract that could theoretically result from the ongoing investigation."

The Raptors, meanwhile, issued their own statement saying they would wait for the league's findings rather than assuming that risk, but they "remain eager to bring Kawhi back to Toronto and look forward to a swift resolution for our players, our organization, and our fans."

So the NBA initially told Toronto that nothing about the Aspiration investigation should hold up their trade for Kawhi ... and then when they actually agreed to the trade and set up a trade call with the league, someone at the NBA told them if they went through with it, they were on the hook for any Leonard-related penalties. It could be a suspension for the player. It could be his contract getting voided.

This is an enormous bungling by the NBA. It's one thing to let an investigation into salary cap circumvention linger for damn near a year while the team in question continues to rebuild its roster and other teams make moves in specific response to the tightening vice of the league's harder cap structure. It's totally another to give a team acquiring a star under investigation a green light only to throw up a yellow light as soon as news of the acquisition goes public. Someone or multiple someones totally screwed up, and the Raptors should be livid.