Potential Clippers punishments in Kawhi scandal range from death penalty to slap on wrist

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Pablo Torre just keeps finding out more information pertaining to the scandal the Los Angeles Clippers find themselves engulfed in owing to an alleged $28 million 2021 “no-show” deal with Kawhi Leonard.

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The investigative reporter released yet another Pablo Torre Finds Out episode Thursday on the topic, revealing more of a seemingly-damning paper trail between the Clippers and the now-bankrupt climate change company/former team sponsor Aspiration.

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Even with all of the information Torre has unearthed, a lot of it appearing quite fishy to be sure, it still might not be enough to garner a significant punishment. This corner has been musing for weeks that NBA commissioner Adam Silver, who is now investigating through a legal firm, probably wouldn’t bring the hammer down the way his predecessor and mentor David Stern likely would have tried to. For one, Silver is a more measured commissioner than the fiery Stern, and the league’s own rules around salary cap circumvention, which is what Torre alleges the Clippers did in this case, seem to. Limit how badly Clippers owner Steve Ballmer, his franchise, or even Leonard, might get hit. Even with a “smoking gun” similar to what the NBA found when the Minnesota Timberwolves were punished in 1999 for the Joe Smith under-the-table agreement which put off paying the former No. 1 overall pick Smith for a few years to get around salary cap limitations, it wouldn’t be easy to do what some think the Clippers would deserve in that case.

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And rest assured, there are some in the NBA who would support something similar to the NCAA’s “death penalty” (that penalty banned guilty teams from competing in their sport for a year, such as when SMU’s football team was caught in a scandal involving boosters providing illicit payments to players, or when Michigan’s Fab Five basketball team had its 1992 and 1993 Final Four appearances vacated).

The Clippers won’t be banned from the league for a year, nor will Ballmer, the NBA’s richest owner and until all of this, a huge favourite of Silver’s by most accounts, be booted the way former Clippers owner Donald Sterling was. Silver and the other owners simply don’t have the power to remove him for this (and Ballmer still has his boosters in the ownership ranks for paying a then unheard of $2 billion for the Clippers to buy them from Sterling and his wife and allow the NBA to not only move past that black mark on the league, but also to kick the ascension of franchise valuation into high gear, with the Lakers and Celtics recently selling for five and three times what Ballmer paid for the Clippers, respectively).

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As well, it’s possible some teams might not want the league to delve too deep into this, for fear of what else might be uncovered. There have been stories about the Kawhi scandal where league sources have anonymously said to reporters that impropriety is rampant when it comes to things like tampering and cap circumvention. Even then Wolves general manager Kevin McHale said after the fallout of the Smith fiasco: “There are eight to 10 teams that do this all the time. They’re just good at it. We’re bad.” Do we really believe if that was indeed true then things aren’t at least as cutthroat now that so much more is at stake financially compared to back then in professional sports?

– At most, the NBA’s bylaws allow Ballmer to be suspended, if found guilty, along with other Clippers staffers, for up to a year, with each also potentially fined up to $1 million (Ballmer’s worth north of $150 billion, a million bucks to him ain’t quite what it was to the Barenaked Ladies back in the day).

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The Clippers as a whole could also be fined up to $7.5 million, which, while more than the $3.5 million the Timberwolves were docked 26 years ago, is comparable to that if adjusted for inflation, and is also comparable for Ballmer to one of us non-billionaires being fined a Toonie or so.

This would hurt Ballmer’s pride a lot more than his pockets, since he’s set to host the 2026 all-star weekend at his pride and joy, the Intuit Dome.

– The Wolves were also docked five first-round draft picks in a row (though two were eventually given back) and McHale and the team’s owner were barred for a year and nine months, respectively. The Clippers have already traded away their 2026 and 2028 first-round picks and don’t control their 2027 or 2029 firsts because other teams have swap options with them. That means the NBA could ensure no Clippers first-round picks for nearly the next decade if a similar penalty to Minnesota’s initial judgment gets handed down if L.A. is found guilty. Yikes. With one of the league’s oldest rosters, few teams need young help more than the Clippers and this scenario would render them irrelevant until well into the 2030s.

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– What about Leonard, the guy the Clippers wanted so badly?  He could be fined up to $350,000 (at $49 million a season, that means Leonard would lose about a third of one paycheck, not to mention all the money he allegedly received from Aspire). Leonard’s famously frugal, but we doubt he’d be too crushed about a fine like that.

He could also have his contract voided, the way Smith’s was, which would allow Leonard to join any team he wants (the most hilarious outcome of course would be a return to Toronto, but we wouldn’t bet on that). If Leonard wanted to stay home, how about joining Luka Doncic, LeBron James and the Lakers (he didn’t want to team up with James and be the No. 2 star years ago, but maybe things have changed now, given how much he likes being close to his L.A. and San Diego properties?)

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This would punish the Clippers on the court (though he’s missed tons of games over his time there and not led them to any playoff success) and kind of benefit Leonard, by allowing him to escape what should be a circus this season and the NBA might not want to help him out. And would about the angle that it might help the Clippers to void the Leonard contract, since it would allow them to add a far younger marquee player or two via free agency?

Leonard also might have to give back the money he got from Aspiration, according to The Athletic, which presented an idea recently that any Aspiration payments go onto L.A.’s salary cap, so even if Leonard’s contract gets voided, it would prevent them from having the space to sign a star free agent.

Our best guess: Don’t expect any punishment to happen anytime soon. We could see the NBA stalling until after Ballmer’s all-star bonanza in February. The Clippers and Ballmer will eventually receive some sanctions, but it might not be anything close to what some will feel they deserve.

@WolstatSun

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