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Count me among the cynics who thought that Steve Ballmer was simply too rich, too friendly with NBA commissioner Adam Silver, and had too many lawyers to face serious punishment for his team’s blatant attempts to circumvent the salary cap with a series of shady endorsement deals for Kawhi Leonard. The punishment Silver and the NBA handed down Wednesday is serious indeed.
It’s a huge penalty for the Clippers, who will forfeit their first-round picks from 2029 to 2033. That’s almost as much as they gave up to get Paul George! The Clippers’ 2027 and 2028 firsts are already encumbered by trades, so they’ll lose the next five, leaving them with only the Indiana Pacers’ pick in 2029 and the Toronto Raptors’ draft picks in 2031 and 2033.
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Leonard’s own punishment was only a $700K fine, so presumably the Raptors will no longer object to completing their earlier deal for The Claw, and he can move on to no-show deals with Tim Horton’s, Canada Dry, and Molson’s.
The NBA’s nearly year-long investigation “found a pattern of misconduct and multiple significant rules violations by the Clippers organization.” Those violations included:
● Affirmatively initiating off-court income opportunities between Mr. Leonard and four companies doing business with the team: Aspiration Partners, Boingo Wireless, Daktronics, and Lockton Insurance;
● Facilitating endorsement agreements between these companies and Mr. Leonard;
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● Inducing the companies to enter into these agreements by offering them business from the team;
● Paying personal expenses on behalf of Mr. Leonard and his representatives; and
● Failing to report improper solicitations for off-court income opportunities made on Mr. Leonard’s behalf through his then-business manager, Dennis Robertson.
Ballmer and the Clippers had loudly proclaimed their innocence as to any wrongdoing in Leonard’s $28M endorsement deal with Aspiration, the now-defunct tree-planting/climate credits company that was a big Clippers sponsor. That deal apparently didn’t require Leonard to do anything to reap tens of millions, whether it was to post about the company or plant one single…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/nba-suspends-ballmer-levies-massive-220416901.html
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Publish date : 2026-09-02 22:04:00
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