The National Basketball Association are not pleased at all with the Los Angeles Clippers. On Wednesday, the NBA penalized the Clippers five draft picks after they determined the franchise allegedly violated salary cap circumvention rules in giving their star player Kawhi Leonard a lucrative endorsement deal according to Michael J. Chandler and Jonathan Soveta of thescore.com.
The draft picks will take place for five consecutive seasons from 2029 to 2023. Los Angeles will also be fined $30 million.
The NBA also suspended owner Steve Ballmer one year, president of business operations Gillian Zucker one year, and president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank six months. Zucker and Frank will not get paid during their suspensions.
The biggest beneficiaries are the Toronto Raptors and Leonard. The NBA superstar will not be suspended and it appears that the trade between the Clippers and Raptors which includes Leonard, will soon come to fruition. Leonard will be fined $700,000 but will not be suspended by the league. There was also concern that the NBA investigation would go into 2027. That is no longer the case, and benefits Leonard and the Raptors more.
Leonard allegedly received a four-year, $28 million endorsement contract from Aspiration, a defunct banking company. Ballmer had invested $50 million into Aspiration.
However, the NBA has come down hard on Leonard’s uncle and business manager Dennis Robertson too. Leonard’s relative is prohibited from speaking to anyone associated with the NBA for five years.
The future success of the Clippers is definitely in doubt. One interesting element as part of the trade is that the Clippers will receive the Raptors’s first round picks in 2031 and 2033. It appears that the Clippers will be allowed those picks, and they just lose their own picks.
