The evidence against Steve Ballmer and the Clippers in this Kawhi Leonard saga continues to pile up, and it seems that the dumber Ballmer tries to play it, the more guilty he looks. If you don’t know the details, the basic reporting, as presented by Pablo Torre, is that a boatload of cash ($28 million) was paid to Leonard — via KL2 Aspire LLC, a corporation which lists Leonard as its manager — by a now-bankrupt sustainability company named Aspiration, which just so happened to receive a $50 million cash surge from … Steve Ballmer.
You doing the math?
The allegations are that Ballmer set up this no-show job for Leonard so that he could pay him more than the NBA’s salary cap would allow. If these salary-cap circumvention accusations prove true, this would constitute highly illegal activity through the lens of the league, which has hired a law firm to investigate the whole thing.
Kawhi Leonard contract drama, explained: Latest news as NBA investigates Clippers for salary cap circumvention
Sam Quinn
The fallout could be massive. Or it could be a slap on the wrist. As Torre continues to trickle out increasingly damning information, speculation on what the potential penalties could be has heated up. Might it cost the Clippers a mere fine? Ballmer wouldn’t care about that. He has more money than God. Might it cost them a bunch of draft picks? That’s starting to get heavier.
Might it cost them all of that and Leonard. It’s possible, if Silver decides to make an example of this and voids Kawhi’s contract. That’s what happened to the Timberwolves back in 2000 when they got caught paying Joe Smith three small one-year deals with an agreement — in writing, which was the big problem — that once they had Smith’s Bird rights they would reward him down the line with a big contract north of $80 million (even if he wasn’t worth nearly that much as a player by then, or ever for that matter). In the meantime their cap sheet would be a lot cleaner to sign other players they otherwise would not have been able to fit under the cap.
This initially wound up costing the Wolves five future first-round picks (which was later reduced to three), and a $3.5 million fine. In addition, Smith’s contract was voided, then-Wolves owner Glen Taylor was suspended, and then-Wolves general manager Kevin McHale was forced to take a leave of absence.
This would be a hilarious outcome. Leonard’s contract with the Clippers ends up voided and he winds up on some contender this season for the league minimum. Somehow I can see him in a Lakers uniform by opening night. I’m almost rooting for this to happen for the sheer chaos.
But let’s say, just for conversation’s sake, that Silver comes down somewhere in the middle and the Clippers just lose some money and future draft picks, with the latter being the most substantive hit. Let’s say it’s three picks. Now add the five first-round picks that the Clippers traded for Paul George in 2019, which was a requirement to land Leonard as a free agent, and that’s eight first-round picks Leonard has cost the franchise.
Oh, and one more thing.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander.
You know, last year’s regular-season and Finals MVP? Yeah, that guy. The Clippers had him. Now the Thunder do. And they also have a championship the Clippers have never come close to winning with Leonard. This isn’t meant to relitigate whether the Clippers should’ve made the deal for Leonard. Every team in the league would have done it. Nobody knew what SGA would become. Leonard was arguably the best player in the world and George, an MVP-caliber two-way wing in his own right, was coming with him.
Still, with the benefit of hindsight, there’s no denying the lopsided basketball cost of that deal, and now you add the potential price of these cap-circumvention allegations and, well, the ultimate cost of Kawhi is starting to look very much not worth it.
Importantly, there’s a lot more to this than just the basketball cost. The NBA is a business. And from a business standpoint, Ballmer bought the team in 2014 for $2 billion and now it’s valued at more than $5 billion. Whatever gripes you have about Leonard’s inconsistent health or the Clippers’ repeated postseason shortcomings, there’s little doubt that Leonard and George coming to L.A. put even more money into the Bank of Ballmer. How much is another question. The Clippers were good before Leonard, and assuming they would’ve been able to put a good team on the court after the Lob City era ended, the L.A. market itself carries most of the value.
The bottom line is the Kawhi era has been a pretty major basketball disappointment for the Clippers, and now it could end up costing them well into the future. That Joe Smith deal seriously crippled the Wolves and probably played a major part in them losing Kevin Garnett after their short-term resources to build around him were stripped.
If Silver goes hard on the Clippers here (again, we have to wait to see what the investigation turns up) and they end up in a big enough hole, it could take them a lot longer to dig out than they ever could’ve envisioned when they landed Leonard six summers ago and the sky seemed like the limit on what this franchise could become.