Pablo Torre successfully stirred up the hornet’s nest when he said he was looking into LeBron James’ helicopter rides with Fanatics. The tip didn’t come from the usual places.

“We are very interested. We’re getting tips from NBA owners,” Torre told Front Office Sports.

League sources had started asking questions of their own. Now the commissioner has weighed in.

Torre’s name carries weight here. His podcast, Pablo Torre Finds Out, won a Pulitzer Prize in May for its reporting on the Clippers’ salary cap circumvention scandal. So when he turned his attention to the Fanatics-branded helicopter that flies James to Philadelphia, people noticed.

James has brushed it off. “I’ve done it before; just another way of transportation,” he said. Adam Silver has gone further.

“I would just say in the case of LeBron and that helicopter, he has a deal with Fanatics,” Silver reasoned in the latest episode of The Pat McAfee Show. “It’s perfectly appropriate if part of his deal is they’re gonna supply a helicopter to him as long as it’s just a deal between the Fanatics and LeBron and no team is involved; there’s no rules issue there whatsoever.”

Silver’s argument is also essentially what was previously reported by Front Office Sports. A spokesperson for James said his Fanatics agreement, signed almost three years ago, gives him access to the company’s corporate aviation. The spokesperson called it a feature of many Fanatics deals with its top athletes.

James lives in New York and uses the helicopter to get to Philadelphia for practices and home games. One-way charters between the two cities are estimated to cost about $4,000 to $10,000. James doesn’t pay for any of it.

Here’s where Pablo Torre’s curiosity is piqued. According to him, NBA sources are wondering whether James was convinced to join the 76ers by Fanatics CEO Michael Rubin, a former minority owner of the 76ers.

“League sources have been wondering, I am told, if former Sixers minority owner Michael Rubin flipped LeBron,” Torre said on his podcast.

The timeline of the whole deal piqued everyone’s interest because James spoke on stage at Fanatics Fest on July 17 and signed with Philadelphia a week later, on July 24. When the news broke, Topps, which Fanatics owns, posted the announcement moments before ESPN’s Shams Charania reported it.

However, Pablo Torre is still investigating the case. Adam Silver’s recent remarks further confirm that the league does not have concrete evidence of any wrongdoing so far.

“That’s not allowed,” Silver said when asked whether teams can arrange a third-party deal for their players. “I mean, in a cap system, because then, whatever the limit is that they can pay that player, the team could then come in and say, ‘but on the side, the following companies, we’ll arrange to do deals with you.’ Obviously, that would be an easy way to circumvent the cap.”

At the same time, Silver also accepted that companies like Fanatics often approach famous NBA players like LeBron James.

He added that “a team can’t play any role in one of their players getting a deal with a separate sponsor.” Players having “direct relationships with a sponsor” is “their right.”

So the question isn’t whether James can fly on Fanatics’ helicopter. Silver says he can. The question is whether the 76ers had anything to do with it. Nobody has shown that they did. But with owners asking questions and Torre on the case, that is where the attention will stay.