NBA Investigation Into LA Clippers Is Over: What Is Their Punishment?

Nearly a year after the NBA and law firm Wachtell Lipton opened their investigation into an accusation made by podcast journalist Pablo Torre that the LA Clippers Circumvented the salary cap they announced early Wednesday the clippers will be stripped of 5 1st round picks among other punishments. It was also announced earlier Wednesday that the NBA and the feds are opening an investigation into scoreboard manufacturer Daktronics in relation to an alleged sponsorship deal they had with Kawhi Leonard. The accusation stated that the Clippers was using paying Leonard for “no-show jobs” through sponsor Aspiration as a way to circumvent the NBA salary cap.

The Punishment

In a statement, the NBA said a near-yearlong investigation “found a pattern of misconduct and multiple significant rules violations by the Clippers organization, a prior offender of the salary cap circumvention rules.” As a result of this as i mentioned early the Clippers have been stripped of 5 1st round picks (2029, 2030, 2031, 2032 and 2033. The Clippers have been fined $30 million, Along with the fine owner Steve Ballmer has been suspended from all league and team activities for one year “for knowingly seeking to help Mr. Leonard obtain off-court income opportunities,” among other issues. They NBA also announced that president of business operations Gillian Zucker has been suspended a year with pay and president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank is suspended without pay for 6 months. Leonard goes without been suspended but has been handed a fine of $700,000 for “violated the circumvention rules by pressuring the Clippers to assist him in obtaining off-court income opportunities, successfully obtaining those opportunities, and failing to reimburse payments by the Clippers for personal expenses.”

In a statement commissioner Adam Silver said “The NBA’s collectively bargained system for determining player compensation is a fundamental component of the basketball competition that the league oversees for the benefit of the teams and players and ultimately the fans, I am deeply disappointed by the flagrant violations of our rules and by the Clippers’ institutional and leadership failures that led to this misconduct. The severity of the penalties reflects the seriousness of the violations.”

Leonard’s uncle and former business manager Dennis Robertson for his part in this has been banned from doing business with NBA teams for five years. on top of their other punishments the Clippers and their personnel will be under a compliance and monitoring program by the league for five years. As mentioned before in an NBA statement the Clippers have attempted to do this kind of thing before. Back in 2015 the organization was fined $250,000 for violating rules against offering unauthorized business or investment opportunities to players as they pursued free agent Deandre Jordan.

Clippers Response

In response to the leagues findings the clippers who multiple times in recent months have said they have done nothing wrong and they expected to be cleared of any wrongdoing said they will be challenging the findings through every avenue available to them. In a wider statement they said “We vehemently reject the NBA’s findings, which are the result of a heavily biased investigation seeking to justify a predetermined narrative rather than facts and evidence,” the team said in a statement. “What the league told us privately differs from what it announced today publicly, and they have not held themselves close to the standard Commissioner Silver set at the start of this investigation to ensure [its] fairness and accuracy.” The Clippers also released a letter from Steve Ballmer’s own attorney David Kelly to Commissioner Silver in which he accused Silver of not keeping his promises of the investigation been governed by due process and fundamental fairness as well as the burden being on the league to prove any violations through evidence.

Kawhi Leonard’s Response

While the Clippers got very defensive in their response to the findings Leonard on the other hand through his new agent Harrison Gaines says he accepts “full responsibility for lapses in judgment by people within my inner circle and regret the distraction this situation has caused the fans and my family.” as well as “I entered into my contract with the Clippers as well as the agreements in question in good faith, fully committed to fulfilling my obligations and with no knowledge of any intent on anyone’s part to circumvent the salary cap,”.

What’s Next

Well in terms of the Clippers well they will certainly attempt to legally challenge this ruling and sue to avoid having to pay the fines and to overturn these over punishments handing down by the NBA but given the evidence present in the 35 page report released it doesn’t look like the Clippers have much of a chance of overturning any of these punishment. The Clippers away from that are almost certainly screwed for the future they don’t have their own first until 2034 putting them in a position where they almost certainly need to field a good enough team to get them through until then where they can start a real rebuild.

While For Kawhi Leonard he will get his trade back to the Toronto Raptors where he won the NBA title and finals MVP with back in 2019. Of course the Clippers will also get 2 first round picks from this deal but they will more than likely be late round picks anyway but it is something. But either way in the immediate future this is likely to get more messing before it gets any better for the clippers.

Final Thoughts

I hope for the Clippers sake this mess they made with the Kawhi situation was well worth because what a mess they have made for themselves. They originally screwed themselves for the future when they traded for Paul George for MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and multiple first round picks. That move plus the punishment they are now left with leaves them with nothing currently and no immediate future either. The NBA though have fully sent a message to the rest of the league that this type of business will not be tolerated and will be punishment very heavily and the clippers have certainly felt that might.