If you’re looking for a comp for what the NBA just did to the LA Clippers, you’d have to go outside of American professional sports to do it.
You’d have to go to college. And, to me, that would be SMU getting the ‘death penalty’ from the NCAA in 1987 for paying players. Unfortunately for it, SMU was just 40 years ahead of its time.
The Clippers time, meanwhile, has run out. Five first-round picks? Gone. Owner Steve Ballmer’s access to games and team events for a year? Gone. Out of his pocket, $30 million? Gone.
It’s debilitating for a team looking to build with young players.
But it is correct.
Say this about NBA Commissioner Adam Silver: He’s never missed on a chance to send the ultimate message when it needed to be done. And make no mistake, this had to be done. In this case, he struck the right tone. No tolerance.
No professional league wheels and deals quite like the NBA. First, it was just agents making the deals. Then, players discovered they could pressure organizations to trade them. Boundaries have been pushed and pushed, and finally, here we are.
Team sponsors being introduced to, and hanging around, players is common. And it’s getting more saturated as organizations dive into selling, and providing, more “experiences,” putting sponsors, business leaders and other high-net worth individuals around players for a variety of events.
Additionally, there are more family and friends brokering deals large and small for these players than ever before. It was inevitable that mistakes and greed leading into some sketchy territory would follow.
This is a not-so subtle reminder that while the goalposts have moved, they cannot be removed.
However, a bigger piece of Kawhi Leonard’s pie could have been removed. He was fined $700,000, which most people — rightfully so — see as a slap on the wrist. A trade to Toronto is expected to go through, and he’ll skate out of LA only about a couple of weeks of salary lighter.
I don’t believe he did anything more here than take the money provided to him through deals consummated by his uncle and the various companies they dealt with.
But.
I would have fined him the exact amount of the money he gained from those deals, which according to reports, would have been just north of $50 million. That was the money that allowed the Clippers to circumvent the cap, and so it should be taken away.
In the end, this was a long and winding but fascinating road. There are rules to this — in the NBA maybe more than anyone has the stomach for. Still, this was necessary.
The ultimate impact on the Clippers will take years to sort out. They were defiant in a statement to the media, vowing to fight this ruling tooth and nail. But what if they don’t? Maybe the five draft picks taken gets taken down only to two or three. There are picks coming back in the Leonard trade to Toronto that they can use as well.
Overall, this was the only acceptable outcome. In a world where some are always searching for the loophole, this one closed. And the NBA, as a league, is better for it.