Following an investigation that spanned nearly a year, the NBA has announced its disciplinary actions against the Los Angeles Clippers following their salary cap circumventions regarding Kawhi Leonard.
The Clippers will forfeit 5 future first round picks, beginning in 2029 and running through the 2033 season. They’ve also been fined $30M, while owner Steve Ballmer has been suspended from all league and team activities for a year. President of business operations Gillian Zucker has been suspended without pay for 1 year, and president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank has been suspended without pay for 6 months.
“The NBA’s collectively bargained system for determining player compensation is a fundamental component of the basketball competition that the league oversees for the benefit of the teams and players and ultimately the fans,” NBA commissioner Adam Silver said. “I am deeply disappointed by the flagrant violations of our rules and by the Clippers’ institutional and leadership failures that led to this misconduct. The severity of the penalties reflects the seriousness of the violations.”
The NBA also said in their statement that the Clippers were a “prior offender of the salary cap circumvention rules” which is what led to the harsh penalties. That statement was in reference to a 2015 incident involving the team’s pursuit of DeAndre Jordan in free agency which resulted in a $250,000 fine for violating rules against offering unauthorized business opportunities to players.
According to those with knowledge of the situation, there will be no formal appeals process available to the Clippers as the league’s rulings are considered final and binding. This means that the only avenue available to Los Angeles to contest the decision would be to take the matter to court. Something that the team doesn’t appear to be ruling out in the aftermath of the announcement.
“We vehemently reject the NBA’s findings, which are the result of a heavily biased investigation seeking to justify a predetermined narrative rather than facts and evidence,” the team said in a statement. “What the league told us privately differs from what it announced today publicly, and they have not held themselves close to the standard Commissioner Silver set at the start of this investigation to ensure [its] fairness and accuracy.”
The investigation was conducted by New York law firm Wachtell Lipton, which released a summary report Wednesday.
Los Angeles and the Toronto Raptors previously completed a trade which would see Leonard return to Canada where he helped the team win a 2019 NBA championship. That deal had been put on hold pending the completion of the league’s investigation into the salary cap allegations, but is now expected to be finalized.
Photo: Amin Eshaiker. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.