r/nba • u/TrenAt14 • Sep 02 '26
[Charania]: BREAKING: The NBA has ruled on the Los Angeles Clippers in for salary cap circumvention investigations on Kawhi Leonard after yearlong probe -- stripping the franchise of 5 first-round picks, issuing a $30 million fine to owner Steve Ballmer and suspensions for Ballmer, Lawrence Frank
Shams Charania has posted the following:
BREAKING: The NBA has ruled on the Los Angeles Clippers in for salary cap circumvention investigations on Kawhi Leonard after yearlong probe -- stripping the franchise of 5 first-round picks, issuing a $30 million fine to owner Steve Ballmer and suspensions for Ballmer, Lawrence Frank and Gillian Zucker, sources tell ESPN.
Kawhi Leonard will have to pay $700,000 in restitution for improper benefits by the Clippers for his uncle and former business rep, Dennis Robertson. No contract void or suspension for Leonard. And Robertson -- who was fired by Leonard in June -- is being banned by the NBA from all business dealings.
Link to the story: https://www.espn.com/contributor/shams-charania/5378a64df7b61
Follow up:
Per NBA: The Clippers shall forfeit five first-round draft picks, one in each of the 2029, 2030, 2031, 2032, and 2033 NBA Drafts.
Clippers owner Steve Ballmer is suspended from all league and team activities for one year for knowingly seeking to help Mr. Leonard obtain off-court income opportunities, for approving a business deal that he knew was a precondition for Aspiration to enter into an endorsement agreement with Mr. Leonard, and for his failure to create conditions under which his organization abided by the NBA’s circumvention rules.
Clippers President of Business Operations Gillian Zucker is suspended without pay for one year for being primarily and directly culpable for the impermissible endorsement arrangements and for providing false and misleading statements to investigators.
Clippers President of Basketball Operations Lawrence Frank is suspended without pay for six months for his involvement with the impermissible endorsement arrangements and for approving impermissible expenses incurred by Mr. Leonard and his family.
The Clippers organization and personnel are subject to a compliance and monitoring program overseen by the league office for a period of five years.
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u/PointBlankCoffee Sep 02 '26
Holy shit lol.
Clippers are already in the trenches but this just ends them
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u/MegaGorilla69 Sep 02 '26
The clippers next FRP just started middle school
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u/Virtual_Zebra_9453 Sep 02 '26
It’s actually worse. They just started 4th grade
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u/Totschlag Sep 02 '26
The Intuit domes going to be world's craziest mausoleum. Absolutely nobody going to those games even harder now.
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u/michaelalex3 Sep 02 '26
I genuinely feel so bad for Clippers fans rn. Like you basically aren’t going to be competitive for a decade.
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u/Totschlag Sep 02 '26
Building the Intuit dome just to have the first decade of it be nothing but misery and terrible basketball is going to go down as a once in a lifetime fumble.
Like by the time the clippers are good that dome will be over a decade old and not shiny and new.
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u/MobysGreatWhiteDick Sep 02 '26
Just disband the team atp and let the supersonics come back in their spot.
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u/f3killer Sep 02 '26
The clippers got hammered hard. Franchise altering. And for what? One conference final appearance
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u/88cowboy Sep 02 '26
I was told yesterday this is an entertainment business not a winning championship business because bronny sold 500k Jerseys.
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u/AAPL_ Sep 02 '26
it’s crazy how many owners don’t have winning as priority 1, 2 or 3. if you are an owner that wants to win I feel like you could at least have your franchise in whatever post season yearly due to the general incompetence or ridiculous frugality of other owners.
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u/The_Throwback_King Sep 02 '26
I’m a Mariners fan, a team known for nothing but misfortune, wackiness, and woe
This headline has me staring in awe and saying “Dear God…”
Clippers fan living in an other kind of hell, HOLEE SHIT!
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u/Brilliant_Land8228 Sep 02 '26
Just goes to show how close they were to pulling off a heist. Kawhi doesnt get injured that series and they could've gotten a ring for it. Would make this punishment worth it, maybe.
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u/RansomGoddard Sep 02 '26
Wow this essentially confirms that they found a
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u/Alex_A3nes Sep 02 '26
ESPN and reporting. Lol
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u/MugiMartin Sep 02 '26
Will somebody please get a hold of Pat McAfee so I can make sense of all of this?!
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u/Caius01 Sep 02 '26
Seriously nasty the way ESPN has handled this whole scandal
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u/McJuggernaugh7 Sep 02 '26
Ramona Shelburne should be banned from this subreddit at this point.
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u/psychedelijams Sep 03 '26
Wasn’t there like literally a report a few weeks ago about how nothing was found?? Even when Pablo torre had literally laid out all the evidence? This current report confused me for that reason a little bit.
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u/ianbits Sep 02 '26
"reporting"
Just parroting their sources and their sources were pro-Balmer.
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u/NT_DC Sep 02 '26
If there was any doubt that ESPN was in Balmers back pocket (there wasn’t) there definitely isn’t any now lmao
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u/carloslet Sep 02 '26
ELI5 as I'm not from the USA: what's a Section 2 violation? Appreciate it in advance
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u/Sitrous1 Sep 02 '26
5 first round picks stripped for a team that has no picks already 💀💀 they’re so fucked
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u/schwinndoctor Sep 02 '26
Don't forget the original 5 first round picks just to make the initial trade for Kawhi happen, so 10 first round picks total and nothing to show for it
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u/WrittenByNick Sep 02 '26
I mean they do have a pretty nice scoreboard. So they've got that going for them.
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u/LGI25 Sep 02 '26
10 first round picks plus shipped SGA away, 2 time MVP and NBA champion - SGA. The Clippers could sure use a guy like SGA right now to weather the storm.
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u/topofthecc Sep 02 '26
They're fucked for 15 years at least unless they pull a rabbit out of a hat.
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u/Thejohnshirey Sep 02 '26
As a fan of a team that owns one of the Clippers future firsts, my initial thought was “shit they aren’t going to tank if they don’t have any draft picks” followed by “without any draft picks, they may not have a choice.” It’ll definitely be interesting to see what the Clippers do to try to stay somewhat “competitive” with absolutely no resources.
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u/EpicCyclops Sep 02 '26
You actually might have the opposite problem where they end up so bad that their draft picks become less valuable
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u/GAV17 Sep 02 '26
What the Nets did when they had 0 picks. Trade for discarded players and fuck the league with RFA overpay offers.
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u/Michelanvalo Sep 02 '26
LAC' 2028 1st round pick to BOS protected for selections 1-16; if this pick falls within its protected range, then BOS will instead have the right to swap the less favorable of the BOS pick and the SAS pick for the more favorable of the LAC' pick and PHI's 2028 1st round pick protected for selections 9-30; if the PHI pick falls within its protected range and is therefore not conveyable, then BOS will instead have the right to swap the less favorable of the BOS pick and the SAS pick for the LAC' pick (via LAC unprotected to PHI; via SAS swap for BOS)
The protections around this pick are insane. I have no idea how this plays out if the Clippers are 1-16 bad but also can't get their own pick.
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u/1psithur3 Sep 02 '26
Keaton Wagler BETTER be a superstar now lmao
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u/Superlolz Sep 02 '26
even if he was KG reincarnate, we know why his prime would be stunted
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u/YungSzczerbiak Sep 02 '26
JUSTICE FOR
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u/Hammerhead34 Sep 02 '26
This is literally the only reason I cared about this saga, we got absolutely fucked in the middle of KG’s prime for this
If the Clippers had gotten away with a slap on the wrist for an inarguably worse offense I would’ve been so mad at the big market privilege
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u/mikesh8rp Sep 02 '26
I also greatly appreciate all the ESPN bootlickers who tried to downplay this thing looking like fools. Ramona Shelburne should be banned from the sub going forward.
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u/SuperVaderMinion Sep 02 '26
I wish Balmer and Kawhi got hit harder, but at the end of the day I care way more about the franchise being crippled than anything else.
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u/Gordo-- Sep 02 '26
This was definitely one of the big reasons I was hoping for a severe punishment like this; it would not have fair otherwise considering what you guys had to go through over Joe Smith.
It's good to see you guys are able to get at least some kind of closure with this punishment. PLUS it's great timing with your club being on the upswing with your franchise player.
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u/Mental-Storage4785 Sep 02 '26
This was my thought the entire investigation lmao let’s go
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u/FishGoldenLite Sep 02 '26
This is my 12/25. If they got off easy after what happened to my Wolves I would’ve lost it.
Justice.
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u/Upstairs_Baby8424 Sep 02 '26
Only thing is Kawhi gets off virtually free in all of this while they voided Joe Smith’s contract.
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u/deevee12 Sep 02 '26 edited Sep 02 '26
This officially makes the Kawhi signing among the worst in history
Absolute franchise destruction LOL
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u/Senth99 Sep 02 '26
Board man gets paid lol
How the fuck did Balmer not see this happening
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u/Electric_jungle Sep 02 '26
Would any of this have come to light of Aspiration didn't get in trouble?
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u/rjgator Sep 02 '26
Shout out all the Clipper fans the last few weeks who were calling Pablo a fraud based off the report nothing was going to happen.
Looks like his story had some legs according to the NBA eh?
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u/Key-Pineapple-1245 Sep 02 '26
There so dead. 5 1st round picks for a rebuilding team is a death sentence. Kawhi and Balmer got off easy. Pocket change to them but the Clippers are absolutely cooked for the next decade.
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u/addictivesign Sep 02 '26
But Clippers are already out several first round picks so it’s much worse for them. It just compounds the situation.
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u/Afraid-Department-35 Sep 02 '26
Poverty franchise for the next 15 years, all for PEDs P and My knee Kawhi.
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u/Ham_PhD Sep 02 '26
Every Clippers fan has a free "pick a new team" pass for the next year.
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u/JiraiyaKholin Sep 02 '26
I mean every clippers fan was born with that free pass and somehow ended up in the situation they're in.
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u/NonSpicySamosa Sep 02 '26
They traded SGA upon Kawhi's request for PG too. Then he's consistently chilling on the bench as an injured prone player. If Clip fans don't end up hating this man, I don't know how else they could feel about him.
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u/Texaslion Sep 02 '26
They did what they needed to do, nobody is gonna look at this and think that they should circumvent the cap next
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u/phonage_aoi Sep 02 '26
Well except Kawhi, took a 700k fine in exchange for 30 mil or something? That’s insane. Also made his uncle the fall guy, but Uncle Dennis isn’t looking for other clients anyways.
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u/Arkham19 Sep 02 '26
That’s consistent with the CBA and past practices. Cap circumvention rules are designed to constrain teams, not players.
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u/JeramiGrantsTomb Sep 02 '26
It's going to be more difficult for the league to make this kind of move cost prohibitive for players, and they'd end up in a fight with the NBAPA. All they really need is to make damn sure no team wants to play this game moving forward, and I think watching the clippers languish into the 2030's is going to send that message.
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u/DataDrivenPirate Sep 02 '26
I'd rather he get more of a punishment but the only way to put a stop to it is to create an incentive structure such that owners won't do it imo
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u/Coke_ButNotTheDrug Sep 02 '26
Kawhi isn’t the root of the problem tho. Teams shouldn’t be able to pay their players underneath the table, this ruling is for the team not Kawhi.
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u/Embarrassed-Slide781 Sep 02 '26
anything other than this is just another year long headache with the union over a suspension for kawhi.
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u/Yup767 Sep 02 '26
The CBA outlines which punishments can and can't be given out. Kawhi was never going to be punished more than this
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u/NobodyRules Sep 02 '26
Good on Silver for this one, I honestly didn't expect it to be this severe. This definitely makes the other 29 teams very hesitant to try some of these shenanigans at least.
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u/MoMo2935 Sep 02 '26
I agree this is scary, as it was so obvious in millions for a no-show contract. However, there's still no way for the NBA to enforce this with less egregious and obvious foul-play? It seems to me this could continue with any little bit of effort.
If Kawhi HAD done 1 instagram post or a commercial or ANYTHING AT ALL, how would the NBA prove any wrongdoing? The players association wont let the league judge and approve private sponsor deals, judging a "fair market price" for Kawhi's sponsorship just wouldn't fly.
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u/Kinglokner16 Sep 02 '26
Holy shit.. the death penalty for the Clippers.
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u/Available_Story6774 Sep 02 '26
Respect to Silver for standing on bidness, thank you Pablo 🙏.
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u/alex_song Sep 02 '26
I’m shocked he actually had the balls to bring the hammer down, didn’t think he had it in him tbh.
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u/wickedsmaht Sep 02 '26
It might have been a situation where some of the owners went to Silver in private and threatened to do this themselves if Balmer didn’t get the max punishment.
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u/VauntedSapient Sep 03 '26
There are definitely at least a few owners who don’t do this sort of thing themselves or at least are way more careful than Ballmer was. And I can believe they want to see him punished now for cheating or otherwise putting all of them under a microscope.
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u/Eltonbeef Sep 02 '26
Why? You don’t known the guy. Why would you assume you know what he’s do in any situation.
So many people got proven to be victims of their own mentality by this scandal. It was just one projecting inexperienced young person after another. You were all wrong.
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u/Eatatfiveguys Sep 02 '26
Well not on Kawhi. $700k fine is not much, there should've been a suspension.
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u/alexjaness Sep 02 '26
didn't the wolves get the number of lost picks lowered later on.
I'm sure after some gambling controversy they will get one or two of those picks back.
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u/Brilliant-Wonder-348 Sep 03 '26
Once again we learn: if you’re a rich guy in the US, the one thing it’s not ok to do – that you could actually face consequences for – is screwing over other rich guys. Bernie Madoff learned this, Sam Bankman-Fried learned it, Martha Stewart, Martin Shkreli, etc etc. Now Balmer’s learned.
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u/welmoe Sep 02 '26
Wonder what lie Mark Cuban is going to push now. Looked real stupid trying to defend his billionaire buddy Ballmer when this first started.
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u/no-kangarooreborn Sep 02 '26
lol and it doesn't seem like Kawhi is getting punished so we're the real winners
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u/MG_MN Sep 02 '26
It killed the Wolves for a long time, this is rough but warranted
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u/Lifendz Sep 02 '26
Pablo, take a bow. You can finally stop. And Cuban, time to admit you were wrong.
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u/KorgG29 Sep 02 '26
5 firsts holy shit
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u/Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu11 Sep 02 '26
What is that now. 10 years without a first besides this year?
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u/MacJonesisaterrorist Sep 02 '26
They traded SGA and 10 firsts for Kawhi and PG
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u/OhWhatsInaWonderball Sep 02 '26
Trade keeps aging like milk left out in an an elementary school cafeteria
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u/yrogerg123 Sep 02 '26
You hate to see it. But at the same time...you love to see it.
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u/KevinAndrewsPhoto Sep 02 '26
Serious question, how could a franchise even recover from that?
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u/idosade Sep 02 '26
Overpay free agents and probably be mediocre until they get their firsts back
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u/663691 Sep 02 '26
Timberwolves had 3 stripped and it killed them in garnetts prime.
Clippers might be better off because LA+Ballmer willing to pay anything
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u/Kindly_Ad995 Sep 02 '26
$30 mil is pocket change to Ballmer but five firsts feels like the right level of punishment for the organization.
Uncle Dennis getting banned for life is frying me though I know Spurs fans are loving that
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u/NuclearGhandi1 Sep 02 '26
Still though, $30mil is a huge fine for a sports league to levy
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u/andreasmalersghost Sep 02 '26
Yeah and im sure ballmer is pissed about that. He has tons of zeroes but he doesnt want to hand over that many of them under any circumstance
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u/Aff_Reddit Sep 02 '26
If you wanna see a massive fine, check out the F1 McLaren Espionage incident from 2007.
$100,000,000.00 because some copy shop employee realized the documents they were copying was technical documents for the Ferrari F1 car and reported it.
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u/Odd_Needleworker3756 Sep 02 '26
The money was always going to be chump change to Ballmer but the Clippers being irrelevant again for the foreseeable future is what really hurts
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u/False_Dimension9212 Sep 02 '26
Being suspended for a year is gonna be painful for a guy like him.
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u/burgerking351 Sep 02 '26
Exactly people keep whining that $30 million is not enough, but there’s no amount of money the league can realistical fine him for will hurt him. The point is that the league didn’t ignore the issue and punished him the best they could.
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u/Stinkycheese8001 Sep 02 '26
That’s the one that I want to know more about. Uncle Dennis banned for life!
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u/devotedhero Sep 02 '26
30m is still pretty steep imo. Either way it's the max allowable punishment in the CBA so it's not like Silver can just vibe a harsher punishment
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u/IStillLikeBeers Sep 02 '26
No, the CBA max is $7.5 million for circumvention. The NBA Constitution allows the commissioner to basically levy whatever fine he pleases for "conduct detrimental to the league". So, yeah, Silver or a future commissioner could just vibe into any punishment they please.
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u/LaDainianTomIinson Sep 02 '26
BREAKING: the clippers are fucckkeed
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u/LosAngeles1s Sep 02 '26
5 first rounders during a rebuild is a life sentence holy
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u/PumpkinHead555 Sep 02 '26
Kind of scared what this means for us now
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u/WayAdministrative679 Sep 02 '26
Circumventing the cap for Gary Trent Jr of all players should deserve worse punishment than what the Clippers got
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u/johnyg13nb Sep 02 '26
Pablo Torre the king slayer
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u/Dust2chicken Sep 02 '26
shoutout to the clippers sub, they were celebrating a couple of weeks ago from the ESPN report, calling Pablo a fraud and saying his Pulitzer should be stripped
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u/-BoldlyGoingNowhere- Sep 02 '26
I'm going to need Pablo to be in witness protection and to do his show from an anonymous location. Great work by Pablo and his team.
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u/Repulsive-Pianist436 Sep 03 '26
I'd be shocked if he didn't have one more up his sleeve for a few days after the NBA punishment announcement
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u/WembyOKCJokicReaves Sep 02 '26
I underestimated you Mr. Silver
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u/Ld511 Sep 02 '26
Basically the max he could have gave them. Massive fine and taking all the picks
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u/lildinger68 Sep 02 '26
I still think Kawhi should have got more of a fine, but this is good
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u/Time_Transition4817 Sep 02 '26
I apologize I was not familiar with his game
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u/bringbackpologrounds Sep 02 '26
As if he didn't ban an owner outright, something Stern never did. Let's not pretend Sarver went willingly either.
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u/smalls_1804 Sep 02 '26
Yeah seriously, people took inaction for permissiveness, turns out Silver just wanted to marshal every scrap of evidence
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u/sexygodzilla Sep 02 '26
People were really just assuming he was gonna go easy on 'em mostly based on their fantasy of David Stern.
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u/DrKurgan Sep 02 '26
Because the independent firm doing the investigation was being thorough and it took a long time a lot of people wrongly assumed nothing was going to come out of it.
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u/iButtflap Sep 02 '26
people were really saying we needed stern back with a straight face. silver may not be a wartime general, but he’s earned the benefit of the doubt
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u/ish_baid19000 Sep 02 '26
Ramona Shelburne should be ashamed of her "reporting" the past few months
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u/Desert_Haze12 Sep 02 '26
She’s always been a hack, I remember when she confirmed she’s a “narrative” MVP voter on live TV.
Should have lost her MVP voting rights instantly for that
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u/zuckitsuckerberg Sep 02 '26
Proves you can be lousy and luck yourself into a good career
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u/ntpbr1 Sep 03 '26
The fact that she has a vote tells you everything about the MVP. Some of the voters are genuinely not watching any games, only a small % of voters are somewhat respectable voters
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u/pizzahut_is_elite Sep 02 '26
Yeah unfortunately In this league and probably the other ones, that’ll help you win the voting right
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u/WorthChange858 Sep 03 '26
And her fat churro inhaling ass. Fuck Ramona Shelbourne
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u/sportsgambler2 Sep 02 '26
Damn! Silver brought down the hammer
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u/VictorAkwaowo1 Sep 02 '26
Kawhi on the other hand….
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u/WeCantBothBeMe Sep 02 '26
He pocketed tens of millions of dollars under the table and all it cost him was $700k and he’ll get a new extension from the raptors. He made out like an absolute bandit.
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u/JaySayMayday Sep 02 '26
Raptors gonna cover way more than that 700k fines lol. Dude got out of this in the green
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u/CIark Sep 02 '26
I feel like the amount of publicity this got forced his hand lmao they’d look like a clown show if they let this slide
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u/Shepher27 Sep 02 '26
None of this would have been uncovered without Pablo Torre
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u/siziyman Sep 02 '26
didn't stop Stern from mostly sweeping the ref gambling scandal under the rug :>
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u/Kangaroo_Quart Sep 02 '26
Bang bang Adam Silver's Hammer came down upon his head
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u/kamillionare Sep 02 '26
OH BUDDY LETS GO
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u/Imthegoat175 Sep 02 '26
Clips going into purgatory wtf
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u/PumpkinHead555 Sep 02 '26
And Kawhi gets let off free. Raptors are the winner of this
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u/CtrlAltDelightfull Sep 02 '26
5 FIRST ROUND PICKS LMAOOO WE GOT JUSTICE BOYS
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u/xepa105 Sep 02 '26
So to get Kawhi and Paul George, the Clippers gave up:
SGA
Danilo Gallinari
First Round picks in 2021* , 2022, 2023* , 2024 and 2026 (* via Miami)
First-round pick swaps in 2023 and 2025
Five more first round picks (presumably from 2027 to 2032)
All of it to reach one (1) Western Conference final
LOL LMAO
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u/CIark Sep 02 '26
Adam Silver bringing back accountability for billionaires I can’t believe it
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u/Mg29reaper Sep 02 '26
If i am a clippers fan I might stop watching basketball for like 10 years.
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Sep 02 '26 edited Sep 02 '26
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u/SmokeOddessey Sep 02 '26
Whoever fake leaked to
that they were gonna get away with it a few weeks ago is a legend lmao Ballmer → More replies (39)→ More replies (49)1.3k
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u/KimJongYeaBigBong Sep 02 '26
Funny thing is that Kawhi was injured half of the time. So this wasn’t even worth it at all 😭😭
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u/Simple_Dragonfruit48 Sep 02 '26
And they had to trade Shai plus a ton of picks to get Paul George just to get him to sign.
I wanna see what that trade looks like with the 5 picks included.
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u/Apprehensive_Put_321 Sep 02 '26
Is there any example of a worse decision in sports?
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u/howlahowla Sep 02 '26
And this is who the raptors want to pay tens and tens potentially over a hundred million dollars to?!?
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u/ThlammedMyPenis Sep 02 '26
How many times did he play in the clippers last game of the season? Twice?
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u/overandoverandagain Sep 02 '26
Even if he was healthy the entire time, this was absolutely not worth it unless they brought home a ring. Even then, they get the asterisk. There's no real win.
This was just dumb as fuck and only makes sense if Ballmer was just 100% certain they'd never look into it or otherwise Find Out.
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u/panther553212 Sep 02 '26
What happened to that ESPN article two weeks ago saying NBA had no evidence. Joke ass company being a mouthpiece for a cheating billionaire.
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u/finndego Sep 02 '26
That likely came from Clippers camp. It was pretty dumb.
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u/T-Rigs1 Sep 02 '26 edited Sep 02 '26
Don van Natta and Ramona Shelburn wrote that article. Ramona was the ESPN reporter that was on call for Ballmer's initial emergency propaganda response interview to Pablo's initial report those years ago, so it is safe to say where these 'journalists' are getting their information from.
Edit: Jesus, that was only last year. Feels like a lifetime ago.
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u/Ok_Hornet_714 Sep 02 '26
that was pretty clear once the NBA PR guy said the article contained multiple inaccuracies. That isn't something they say for any old article (and never for anything Pablo said)
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u/HoopyHobo Sep 02 '26
Certainly. It's just embarrassing for ESPN that they allowed themselves to become the mouthpiece for someone else's propaganda instead of doing some actual journalism to find out if there was any merit to the story they were being fed.
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u/PositiveCoyote100 Sep 02 '26
Shams needs to have his integrity called into question based on that article.
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u/Beatnik77 Sep 02 '26
There was 3 authors: Don Van Natta Jr. Baxter Holmes , Ramona Shelburne.
I thought it was suspicious that Shams was not among them.
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u/melteddice Sep 02 '26
joe smith you can finally rest easy, you are no longer the poster boy
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u/Upstairs_Baby8424 Sep 02 '26
Joe Smith got his contract voided while Kawhi gets a measly $700k fine. But yeah this one trumps that in terms of impact to an organization.
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u/Joh951518 Sep 02 '26
They should have voided his contract so he could just sign with the Raptors to fuck the clippers over even more
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u/ntpbr1 Sep 03 '26
Silver had balls to do something about this but not enough to actually have consequences for a popular player. If this was a shitty player he’d be banned or get his contract voided or something
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u/Winnes0ta Sep 02 '26
Pablo vindicated. Shocked that Silver didn’t chicken out
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u/MY-NAME_IS_MY-NAME Sep 02 '26
5 first round picks is a lot. 30 million, while not much to a man of Ballmer's wealth is pretty unprecedented. Plus the suspensions to the front office folks. Most importantly, no more Uncle Dennis. Silver actually sort of came down on them.
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u/msf97 Sep 02 '26
5 first round picks is fucking insane, far more note worthy than the fine.
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u/LaMelonBallz Sep 02 '26
The picks hurt more than any amount of money he could realistically fine him
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u/TheWestRemembers Sep 02 '26
“Everyone here owes Pablo an apology.”
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u/DrKurgan Sep 02 '26
"Everyone here owes Silver an apology.”
Months of the whole sub shitting on him because the independent firm doing the investigation was being thorough.
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u/1850ChoochGator Sep 02 '26
He never was. It was clear that they were going to investigate and give it time.
Ballmer and the organization did a lot of propaganda to make people believe otherwise.
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u/aiden3buckets Sep 02 '26
That ESPN article sure was right huh
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u/ownage516 Sep 02 '26
I was told I had to apologize to someone now??
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u/CactusHooping Sep 02 '26 edited Sep 02 '26
This subreddit owes the Clippers an apology
Regarding the high volume of reports coming in on this post, I'm not trying to remove this thread because so much discussion has already taken place, but this is the kind of editorializing that will get your posts removed a lot more often than not. Chill out with the provocative ragebait, especially when sharing news.
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u/daft_dunkwwwolfey Sep 02 '26
Clippers fans were as smug and annoying as Browns fans before Watson showed he was washed. Talking all that shit when you're up, stay down lmaooo 😂😭😭👇
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Sep 02 '26
Definitely planted by Balmer in a desperate move once he saw where this was going
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u/azizinator25 Sep 02 '26
Correct. The headline of the ESPN piece was a little misleading. The actual substance of the article was basically "The Clippers are confident that the NBA has nothing", not actually saying the NBA has nothing
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u/ostrow19 Sep 02 '26
That espn article was embarrassing. People should be aware that most modern sports journalists are doing a favor for somebody at all times, but that one really hammered it home.
Ballmer can just pay guys to write whatever the fuck he wants, glad he’s facing consequences
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u/Tragedy_Boner Sep 02 '26
Wondering how they could have even published that. Super wrong
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u/colev14 Sep 02 '26
So that ESPN article was complete propaganda from the Clippers side. As suspected. Everyone freaked out for no reason.
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u/altofummuhh Sep 02 '26
I've been commenting on this sub all year about how everyone thinking nothing was gonna happen was grossly misinformed, but when I saw that headline at first even I wavered. I have to tip my hat to Ballmer because that was worded absolutely perfectly. "Sources: NBA has found no..." Primes the reader into thinking this is near official word coming down from someone well connected to the league, meanwhile the sources were Ballmer, his crackpipe and some lackeys in the Clippers FO.
Each of those writers has lost whatever credibility they had, very obviously running PR for a billionaire without an ounce of critical thought. There's no way their sources were anyone outside of the Clippers for them to be so spectacularly wrong.
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u/MelonElbows Sep 03 '26
Do you still have that article? I want to read it now with this new info today
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u/YoYoMoMa Sep 02 '26
Crazy that such respected reporters were on that byline
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u/19captain91 Sep 02 '26
Yeah. If Don Van Natta's name had not been on it, I would have dismissed it out of hand. His name carried a lit of weight and now, in my eyes, he's lost a lot of credibility.
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u/ManicManicManicManic Sep 03 '26
It made me so upset that Pablo had made hour+ long content going into documents, interviews breakdowns etc and a bunch of morons were clinging onto that ESPN article, smearing Pablo’s name. All because it went against their narrative.
It’s a symptom of a bigger problem in this country. Thank god Silver did something.
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u/SexyWampa Sep 02 '26
Don't forget, the SEC just opened an investigation into the scoreboard company too. This isn't completely over...
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u/hydroknightking Sep 02 '26
I honestly am pretty suspect of the timing of this announcement with the SEC announcement
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u/SexyWampa Sep 02 '26
Oh, it's not a coincidence. That's a shot at ballmer that there's more than enough evidence.He can piss and moan, push for arbitration, but it won't change anything. It's also probably a warning that if they wanted to, they could force a sale.
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u/R001N Sep 02 '26
What’s the deal with the scoreboard company?
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u/Mobile-Entertainer60 Sep 02 '26
Kawhi got another no show "endorsement" job from the company that sold Ballmer the Intuit Dome scoreboard. Ballmer paid above market price for the scoreboard and the balance went to Kawhi.
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u/iheartsunny Sep 02 '26
Thank you Pablo
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u/Captainkoala72 Sep 02 '26
setting an example out of the Clippers so this never happens again
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u/DaSavior Sep 02 '26
Everyone shitting on Pablo need to apologize
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u/toomanyshoeshelp Sep 02 '26
Everyone shitting on ESPN need to continue and make it wet
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u/agentdoubleohio Sep 02 '26
Correct me if I’m wrong, but that seems like a good punishment. 30 million fine is nothing to ballmer but those picks are huge.
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u/chadillac84 Sep 02 '26
BREAKING: Kawhi traded to the Toronto Raptors for 5 first round picks.
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u/njerejeje Sep 02 '26 edited Sep 02 '26
I’ll say it I think trading for Mikal Bridges is a better use of 5 first round picks
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u/Brock-Lesnar Sep 02 '26 edited Sep 02 '26
The Clippers just got nuked into oblivion.
They're about to have some very dark years up ahead.
Edit: For 5 first rounds, a 30 million dollar fine, suspensions for the owner and president of basketball operations, the league had to have found the 'smoking gun' - you don't give out this type of punishment unless you have irrefutable proof.
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u/twistedlogicx Sep 02 '26 edited Sep 02 '26
This subreddit owes the Clippers an apologyEvidently, the Clippers owe the league an apology.
Updates:
The Clippers are required to forfeit their first round picks in 2029, 2030, 2031, 2032 and 2033.
Kawhi Leonard's statement
Full Wachtell Lipton report
Adam Silver's statement
This goes without saying but please do not brigade the Clippers sub.