Source: https://open.substack.com/pub/marcstein/p/adam-silver-says-the-onus-is-on-the?r=nuq3a&utm_medium=ios
Leading up to Silver's first public comments on the matter, I spoke to so many people from various NBA outposts who were openly outraged and likewise convinced that the Clippers are poised to receive some type of penalty. The general perception of their alleged transgressions is that negative. I've spoken to multiple team strategists, for example, who told me, with chests puffed, that if the Clippers aren't docked multiple first-round picks — if Leonard's contract isn't voided while his salary obligations remain on the Clippers' books — they will feel emboldened to seek out their own version of shell companies to provided additional compensation to their players.
That might be the extreme (and emotional) end of the spectrum in terms of leaguewide reaction to this controversy … but it's out there.
34 comments
Presti…. Thunder do need to re-sign their role players soon.
If it wasn’t so pathetic I’d laugh, screw it I’ll laugh anyways
If nothing happens why wouldn’t teams do it? This is a pretty obvious statement
Billionaires remembering that a fine is just the price of doing business when you can afford a million dollar “penalty”
Ballmer’s wealth is so stupidly high that even the maximum fine is a rounding error to him. Losing picks will actually hurt the Clippers and Ballmer.
You could also force him to use Linux for a year, that might upset him I guess.
Someone should have told us about this a couple years ago smh
This is how you pressure the league to take action. Quite a few teams would be happy to fork over a fine and a 2nd round pick to keep their star players happy, if that’s all the league does about the Kawhi situation
Boston just lost 3 of their top 6 fighting the new salary cap, its utter bullshit if teams are allowed to do this.
That’s like the brother trying to get the other grouped
Essentially if they dont get punished lot of teams will start doing similar
Nothing ever happens people what are we thinking
Lakers about to sign every superstar in the league for the minimum
Might be the first time I’ve seen a report suggesting this, I think this is the type of thing owners shoulda made clear to Silver at the BOG meeting, if the Clippers did all this work to circumvent the cap and get hit with nothing then everyone else is going to attempt to do the same
I do think that the path of least resistance and least brand harm to the NBA involves levying a significant penalty on the Clippers (and Kawhi, possibly), assuming that Pablo’s reporting is in the ballpark of truth.
If KL is waived he should be banned from playing nba for like x months and any team picks him up should be fined too, this isn’t just on the clippers imo. I think there’s a responsibility on individuals trying to circumvent rules. Make example
I feel like I’d still consider doing this no matter what penalty Clippers got, I just wouldn’t be a stupid fuck who uses a criminally fraudulent company to do it. Just make your own fake company and play the shell game that rich people already do to avoid taxes. I really don’t know what the NBA is going to do to stop this moving forward. Like they would have to boot Ballmer from the league for me to not do this now if I was a super rich owner.
Right on time for Wemby’s extension
It’s just a highlight sport anyways 🥴
Why pay the luxury tax when you could just give half of it to the players off the books?
Well, duh. This will 100% happen at multiple teams if no material punishment is handed out. Human actions are very predictable; just look at their incentives.
This is also why the notion of Clippers not getting punished is completely absurd.
And what’s to stop Ballmer from doing it again, and again, and again
This league needs a hard cap and severe penalties for circumventing it.
Yep exactly. It’s a massive blow to the integrity of the league if the punishment doesn’t scare tf out of everyone else to not do this, because there’s very little actual policing you can do.
Wtf does team strategists mean? Are ppl not understanding the owners have the power and would need to punish ballmer? If the owners give a light punishment thats all you need to know.
Let’s be real here—- high leverage players will be demanding these side deals, teams don’t want to offer to pay more if they don’t need to.
Paying wemby the rookie scale is a crime in comparison, if constantly crippled kawhi is getting side money.
Honestly, fans will feel the same way.
Portland can’t get NBA players to want to come there, but if you’re allowed to set up side-payments without real punishment, you’d better know that we all expect our teams to start throwing cash around on the DL.
And if that’s the case, what are we even doing with a cap?
IMO: Ballmer should be forced into a sale. If you’re going to be a serious league, be a serious league.
How much has the GSW owner paid in tax over the last decade. Balmer screwed people like him out of luxury tax
I find it hard to believe Balmer is the first to do this. He’s just the first to get caught
Time to intertwine gambling into this while we’re at it.
This is a precedent that is being set. Every team will look at what happens to the Clippers and determine if it is worth it to do this. Voiding contracts, tens of millions in fines paid to the rest of the leagues owner for luxury tax avoidance, multiple FRPs forfeited? Not worth it. Small fine and a couple second rounders given up? Sign me up.
Make the Clippers pay the rest of Kawhi’s salary as a fine and keep it on the books against the cap.
Void Kawhi’s contract and suspend for the next season.
Take away multiple FRPs
This shit is super unacceptable and there needs to be accountability.
Well no shit, because anything but *at minimum* the same punishment the Wolves received (in reality, it should be worse because their offense is worse) will set a new precedent whereby you can circumvent the cap and get away with it because all you’ll get is a measly slap on the wrist.
No shit. Silver is just incentivizing teams to try to secure a competitive advantage if they know they’ll receive the most minimal penalty for it.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
Voiding the contract is an absolute must.
If the cost is 1rp, you still come out ahead signing superstars and never end up needing to draft anyways
Yup at that point just eliminate the salary cap and let it be baseball. The rich will get richer and can pay all the guys to go to LA, NY, MIA and SF. Any owner who then feels like winning a championship can buy one with paying great players to all play on one super team.