Adam Silver - Raptors' Jontay Porter could face permanent ban - ESPN

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 moneymakers for each of them, according to DraftKings Sportsbook.

The NBA has had its own brushes with betting scandals in the past — namely the one involving former referee Tim Donaghy in 2007 — but the topic has exploded into the forefront of people's thinking as sports betting 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