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A day short of a full year since Pablo Torre unearthed evidence that the Los Angeles Clippers under owner Steve Ballmer circumvented the NBA’s salary cap in their dealings with star forward Kawhi Leonard, the league released the findings of its own investigation into the franchise and Leonard.
The 35-page report from the law firm of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz served as a damning rebuke to the Clippers’ denials they had sidestepped league rules. NBA commissioner Adam Silver evidently concurred, stripping the Clippers of five future first-round draft picks, fining them $30 million, suspending Ballmer for a year and levying no-pay suspensions of two of the franchise’s highest-ranking executives.
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The Clippers — through their lawyers — continued to proclaim innocence and seem intent on trying to take their fight to court.
Until then, here are five of the NBA investigation’s key revelations with passages from the report:
Fool me once …
The Clippers’ repeat offender status for cap circumvention factored into the severity of their punishment in the Leonard case.
The report concluded that if any team should have a full understanding of the NBA’s rules regarding salary-cap circumvention, it was the Clippers. In 2015, the NBA fined the Clippers $250,000 for their efforts “to facilitate an endorsement agreement” between free-agent center DeAndre Jordan and a new team sponsor.
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In addition, the league questioned the Clippers in 2019 about reports that Leonard’s uncle and business adviser, Dennis Robertson, was seeking impermissible benefits from teams courting Leonard. The NBA left that investigation open, pending additional evidence.
From the report: “Mr. Ballmer also failed to create conditions under which his organization abided by the NBA’s circumvention rules — an especially egregious lapse because the Clippers are a prior offender of those rules and were previously and specifically investigated by the NBA with respect to Mr. Leonard.”
It pays not to lie
The investigators found Clippers president of business operations Gillian Zucker to not be forthcoming, or even honest. In…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/nba/article/nba-punishes-clippers-steve-ballmer-5-key-findings-from-the-leagues-kawhi-leonard-investigation-043126375.html
Author : Yahoo Sports Staff
Publish date : 2026-09-03 04:31:00
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