Five big-picture ramifications from Clippers punishment

So much for Adam Silver going soft on his wealthiest and most influential owner. 

The NBA levied the harshest punishment in league history on Steve Ballmer and the Clippers "for violating the salary cap circumvention rules contained in the league’s Collective Bargaining Agreement" — stripping them of five first-round picks and suspending numerous individuals within the organization. 

In the league's official announcement, Silver said he was "deeply disappointed by the flagrant violations of our rules and by the Clippers’ institutional and leadership failures that led to this misconduct."

This is the NBA's equivalent of the "death penalty," and it's final and binding on all parties. This will set the franchise back a decade, if not longer. It will also have an impact on the league itself. Here are five big-picture ramifications from the fallout.

1. Ty Lue is suddenly the most available elite coach in basketball

Lue, widely considered to be a top-five coach in the NBA, is on a $14 million per year contract signed through 2029. He signed that deal to coach a contender, not a team with a play-in ceiling and no first-round picks until 2034. 

Lue made it a whole six games in his post-LeBron James Cleveland tenure before being "fired". How quickly does he try to get himself out of his deal in L.A.? 

If Lue hits the market in December, which teams with championship aspirations come calling? Would the Rockets consider replacing Ime Udoka with Lue if the offense looks putrid a quarter of the way into the season? What about the 76ers and Lue's old buddy LeBron? Would the Nuggets make a call if Nikola Jokic looks frustrated?

2. Does Steve Ballmer sell? Would a new owner inherit the penalties?

What if Ballmer comes to the realization that NBA ownership isn't worth the hassle if he doesn't get to play by his own rules? He'd certainly clear an enormous profit on a franchise he bought for $2 billion in 2014.

Silver and the other NBA owners wouldn't hate it if another Los Angeles franchise sold with an eleven-figure price tag. That's what the Clippers would go for, especially if the package included Ballmer's state-of-the-art arena. 

If Ballmer does decide to sell, could Silver offer to waive any remaining draft-pick penalties to any new ownership group in an effort to drive up the franchise valuation? The league presumably has zero appetite for sending one of its most valuable franchises into the Stone Age if none of the culprits from Kawhi Gate are still running the team. 

That said, we all know that the likelier outcome is that Ballmer digs in, hires the best law firms on the planet and tries to burn it all down with him. Which brings us to the scary part for the NBA as a league...

3. Does Ballmer know where other bodies are buried?

If Ballmer — the wealthiest owner in American professional sports and one of the wealthiest people on earth — goes scorched earth on the NBA, where else does this rabbit hole lead? The Clippers didn't invent the book on salary cap circumvention. How many other teams have violated league rules or at least operated in gray areas of the CBA? Does Ballmer have damning information on any other teams?

If he sued the NBA, as the Clippers' response to the punishment implies is a possibility, the NBA would move to dismiss the lawsuit, citing that the NBA is a private organization with a constitution all teams agree to, one that expressly states that all commissioner's decisions are "final and binding." 

If, however, the lawsuit didn't get dismissed, who knows what the discovery phase could unveil. Ballmer could subpoena all salary and endorsement-related correspondence between players and franchises. There've been a handful of superstar players who've taken team-friendly discounts over the past dozen or so years — Dirk Nowitzki (Mavericks), Kevin Durant (Warriors), Jalen Brunson (Knicks), to name a few — what are the chances all of those deals have been completely aboveboard? Where does the league draw the line when it comes to third-party endorsement deals or advantageous investment opportunities masquerading as salary cap circumvention? Does Silver risk more negative publicity for the league or simply settle with Ballmer before it gets that far?

4. Kawhi Leonard's role and responsibility

Kawhi Leonard is a number of things: future Hall-of-Famer, two-time Finals MVP, one of the greatest two-way players in NBA history and now someone with questionable ethics.

Let's not forget the original sin in all of this: during his 2019 free agency, Leonard pressured the Clippers, Raptors and Lakers for off-court money and opportunities that violated league rules. The Clippers acted upon these demands and Kawhi made tens of millions of dollars (that we know of) through devious methods. He didn't even try to put on a facade. One Instagram post, one commercial shoot, one post on X to make it look legitimate — and we probably never find out about any of this. He was too flippant to even try to hide what was going on. Covering the tracks was the Clippers' problem, not his. 

Then, when the league needed the case closed (only the NBAPA is given arbitration rights and the opportunity to appeal a punishment), he took the deal and screwed over the Clippers: $700,000 fine, no voiding of his contract, no suspension. His statement accepted "full responsibility for lapses in judgment by people within my inner circle" — not himself, even though he was the one benefiting from the extracurricular cash. Accepting the penalty behind the Clippers' back and sealing their fate amounts to a Judas-level betrayal of the franchise that treated him like a king and bent over backwards to appease his every need.

Leonard has been given more benefit of the doubt than any superstar of the last decade. The guy will play two weeks of great basketball and suddenly be in MVP conversations. He's often mentioned in the same breath as LeBron, Durant and Steph Curry. 

Meanwhile, he's a part-time player who ultimately cost the Clippers 10 first-round draft picks and two-time MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander when you consider he demanded the team trade for Paul George in order for him to sign in the summer of 2019 (on top giving him of all the salary cap circumventing perks). Let's hope that benefit of the doubt disappears moving forward.

In fact, let's hope the Clippers get vindictive. The trade that was announced earlier this summer sending Kawhi back to Toronto still isn't official yet. Rescind it and make him play a lame-duck season getting booed by Clippers fans as his penance. It'd be petty, but well deserved.

5. Silver's still the man for the job

It seemed as though he'd lost the plot, and was going to let Ballmer & Co. off with a slap on the wrist for blatantly cheating. Well, kudos to Commissioner Silver. He stood up to one of the richest men on the planet and maxed out every penalty the CBA allows.

His tenure as the NBA's leader is now bookended by Clippers scandals. His popularity was at an all-time high after he forced out the despicable Donald Sterling in 2014. It was at an all-time low earlier this summer. And while one good ruling doesn't undo the apron era, it should put him back in good standing with most NBA fans.