The NBA has concluded its investigation into the Los Angeles Clippers for salary cap circumvention involving Kawhi Leonard. They have issued a punishment of stripping the franchise of first-round picks, hefty fines, and suspensions for multiple parties involved. Let’s dive into the entirety of the NBA’s ruling and how bad the Clippers got it.

NBA’s Punishment on the Clippers

The league has brought it down on the Clippers. A similar punishment was when the New York Knicks were fined $500,000 and stripped of multiple second-round picks for violating the league’s tampering rules when they signed restricted free agent Jalen Brunson. Here is the entire fallout from the NBA’s statement:

• Clippers Forfeit Five First-Round Picks (2029-2033)
• Owner Steve Ballmer Fined $30 Million & Suspended from all league and team activities for one year
• Clippers’ President of Basketball Operations, Lawrence Frank suspended for 6 months without pay
• Clippers’ President of Business Operations, Gillian Zucker suspended for one year without pay
• Under a monitoring program overseen by the league for five years
• Kawhi Leonard fined $700,000
• Dennis Robertson, Kawhi’s uncle, is banned from engaging with NBA teams and affiliates for five years

What Does This Mean?

This officially goes down as the worst move in the history of the NBA. In the summer of 2019, Kawhi Leonard informed the Clippers that they needed to acquire Paul George in order to persuade him to sign with them. They gave up future two-time MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and five first-round picks. When you factor in the punishment that was handed out today, that’s a decade’s worth of FRPs for a single Western Conference Finals appearance where you didn’t even have Kawhi play because of injury.

As for “The Klaw“, he gets off with a simple slap on the wrist. Having him pay a $700,000 fine is light in terms of the new deal he agreed to when he got traded to the Toronto Raptors this offseason, but the trade and contract were pending the finalization of this investigation. He avoided his contract being voided and a suspension from the NBA. That means the trade will go through, and he will return to the Raptors, a franchise where he won the title back in 2019.

Opinion on the Situation

The Clippers have come out and said that they will be appealing the NBA’s ruling. We all could have seen that coming down the pipeline. Of course, you appeal it in an attempt to reduce the penalties or nullify the ruling altogether. However, if they in fact paid Kawhi Leonard under the table to circumvent the salary cap, then they deserve everything that comes to them.

Ruining the integrity of competitive sports is something that all leagues look to uphold, no matter the sport or the competition. This is blatant cheating in an attempt to pay players under the table, which will bring up so many other questions and concerns for teams and organizations that are paying their players legitimately.

The future of the Los Angeles Clippers is in a bottomless pit. You trade away 10 first-round picks, two swaps, SGA, and Jalen Williams in an attempt to go all-in and contend with the Los Angeles Lakers in a “Battle for LA” that ultimately flamed out. From blowing a 3-1 lead to the Denver Nuggets in the NBA Bubble to playoff failure after playoff failure.

In some cases, injuries can fall under the luck category, but it is the definition of insanity to do the same things over and over and expect a different result. This franchise hitched its wagon to Kawhi’s horse, and his inability to close out or compete in the playoffs hurt this team more than his spectacular talent on the basketball court, missing 223 of the 554 regular-season games and 15 of the team’s 50 in the postseason.

Final Thoughts

At least we can put this saga to rest. It almost felt like a dark cloud hovering over the Clippers’ organization and a stranglehold on the Kawhi-to-the-Raptors trade. For LA, this is as close to sports purgatory as you can get. They won’t be contenders next season and with no draft capital moving forward, it’s going to be almost impossible to climb out of this hole.

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