In the end, was it all worth it?
The bill came due Wednesday for the Clippers’ maintenance of Kawhi Leonard over the past seven seasons, and it was a whopper: Five first-round draft picks forfeited from 2029 through 2033, a $30 million fine, one-year suspensions for owner Steve Ballmer and President of Business Operations Gillian Zucker and a six-month suspension for President of Basketball Operations Lawrence Frank.
Leonard himself was forced to give back $700,000, a pittance considering that he’s made more than $378.3 million in 14 NBA seasons, and (officially, at least) $293,804,376 in seven seasons as a Clipper. He’s due $50.3 million in 2026-27, which presumably will be paid (along with a contract extension) by the Toronto Raptors now that the trade announced in July – Leonard for Brandon Ingram, Gradey Dick and a draft pick haul including unprotected first-rounders in 2031 and ’33 – will go through.
Oh, and there is this: “Uncle Dennis” Robertson, who has been negotiating Kawhi’s deals – and supposedly asked the Lakers for all kinds of extra benefits during Kawhi’s free agency in the summer of 2019 only to be told they were impermissible – is “banned from conducting business or otherwise engaging with NBA teams and their affiliates on behalf of or with respect to any player, employee, or other league or team personnel for a period of five years,” according to the NBA’s statement on Wednesday.
They didn’t say he couldn’t attend Kawhi’s family functions, so there’s that.
But all of this remains a head-scratcher: All of this effort, all of these furtive negotiations with outside companies – in addition to Aspiration and Daktronics as already reported, Boingo Wireless and Lockton Insurance assisted with the salary cap circumvention according to the NBA’s summary – and what was the result?
No championships, one Western Conference finals appearance, 331 of 574 possible regular-season games that Leonard actually played in during those seven seasons and 35 of 50 playoff games. In 2021, when the Clippers reached the conference finals and lost to Phoenix in six games, Leonard hurt his knee in the previous round against Utah and wasn’t available for the Phoenix series.
Yes, injuries happen. But wasn’t that something that “load management” was supposed to prevent?
(Give Leonard credit for the introduction of that term into the sports lexicon. It was when he was with Toronto, and was given the occasional game off in order to remain healthy, that we first heard the term, which became so pervasive that the NBA created participation standards for its postseason awards.)
And no, this isn’t meant to dunk on Kawhi. The man had just come off his second NBA Finals MVP award in leading Toronto to its first championship in 2019, which was perfect timing heading into free agency.
The Clippers won that competition, if you’ll remember. They not only went to the mat financially, more than we knew as it turns out, but they accommodated Kawhi by trading five first-round picks – as well as future league MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, now a two-time league MVP and the 2025 Finals MVP – to Oklahoma City for Paul George.
Remember that initial news conference with Ballmer, Leonard and George at a recreation center in South L.A.? Remember Ballmer bellowing that it was now “all about the Larry O’B?”
Empty promises. Instead, think of it this way: Twice in a decade Kawhi cost the Clippers five first-round picks. Clearly, this is the gift that keeps on taking.
And this might be the most amazing part of Wednesday’s events: Rather than accepting the league’s punishment the Clippers remain dug in, despite the findings of this elongated investigation.
The team issued a statement Wednesday that “vehemently” rejected the league’s version and indicated the team intended to challenge the punishment. And an additional letter to Commissioner Adam Silver from attorney David N. Kelley of O’Melveny and Myers, which characterized the investigation as a “witch hunt” and “flawed from the outset,” included this passage:
“… (You) represented that “due process” and “a fundamental sense of fairness” would govern the process. You made clear that the “burden [would be] on the league” to prove any violation through actual evidence, not “mere appearances.” And you concluded by promising that everyone involved in the investigation would be treated ‘the same way I would want to be treated if people were making allegations against me.’
“Unfortunately, none of those promises have been kept.”
And, Kelley concluded: “We are exploring every legal remedy to address this gross injustice.”
It likely won’t be an arbitration hearing, since the Players Association signed off on Silver’s decision – which helps explain why Leonard was assessed a mere $700,000, with no suspension or expulsion. The player will always have a strong advocate in the NBA Players Association, and Silver probably figured this wasn’t worth opening a larger dispute with the union.
The owner and executives have no such protection.
So you can assume this is headed for a courtroom. Just imagine how juicy the depositions will be.
And consider: Silver, less than three months after replacing David Stern as commissioner, created Ballmer’s path into the league in 2014 by banning Donald T. Sterling for life after recorded racist remarks came to light, ending Sterling’s odious ownership of a team that had been a running joke.
Ballmer and his executives at least have turned the Clippers into a big league organization, playing in a first-class facility and willing to pay top dollar to create a championship contender. They’re still No. 2 in town to the Lakers, and there are still no banners in the Intuit Dome, but it was a fairer fight than ever before.
But perhaps this is what happens when you’re too ambitious.
jalexander@scng.com