It's 'possible' NBA doesn't punish Steve Ballmer and Clippers for Kawhi Leonard scandal

Yahoo Sports Daily hosts Caroline Fenton and Jason Fitz are joined by NBA contributing writer Tom Haberstroh to discuss the latest news regarding the Kawhi Leonard and Aspiration scandal and explain why the NBA might not punish Steve Ballmer and the Los Angeles Clippers at all. Watch the full episode of Yahoo Sports Daily on YouTube or YahooSports.TV.

Video Transcript

Is there a possibility that the Clippers will face no punishment at all?

Oh, certainly a possibility.

Everything’s on the table with this deal, especially when you’re talking about Adam Silver, who’s already said, hey, they are innocent until proven guilty when the CBA says a lot of language to the contrary.

Is that it doesn’t take a, this is not a court of law.

This is not the criminal justice system.

This is the NBA and the league office and Adam Silver are gonna make a decision, and a lot of this might come down to the appearance, of this might come down to the appearance, appearance of some impropriety and whether that burden of proof is the same thing for the Clippers as it is for everybody else.

We’d like to think that it is, but keep in mind, Adam Silver has already said it publicly that he would like to think that every other owner would have the same presumption of innocence before we, we indict them in some sort of violation.

I understand why people say, hey, so what?

It’s the CBA.

The CBA has a lot of language in it that gives him wide latitude, Adam Silver in figuring out if this is a cap circumvention violation or not.

Whether you have a letter that says, I, Steve Ballmer, want to funnel this money through Aspiration, in order to cap circumvent and give Kawhi Leonard more money.

Absent of that letter, and of course that letter would not exist, guys.

Absent of that letter, everything is kind of circumstantial evidence.

And so for Adam Silver to rule on this, it really is a gray area, something that is gonna be more subjective than I think what a lot of fans would like to hear that this isn’t a black and white issue.

There’s gonna be some gray area, and I will say also, him pulling off the All-Star game.

In terms of saying Steve Ballmer and the Intuit Dome, they are gonna be the host of the All-Star game this February.

That is an important statement because David Stern in the Joe Smith scandal, he went beyond what was in the CBA because he wanted to, you know, send a message.

He wanted to make a statement and it went into the courts afterwards when they, when the NBA players union said, hey, wait, you can’t do that.

You’re not allowed to go as far as you did in the CBA and David Stern was like, try me, and so it went to the courts and they upheld David Stern’s position that they should be giving up five first-round picks and have his previous contract voided with the Minnesota Timberwolves, which is applicable in this sense with Kawhi Leonard.

If Adam Silver wants to throw the book and then some at Steve Ballmer, he probably can’t.

So I think this is interesting that they’re already taking off the table, the punishment that they would move the All-Star game from the Intuit Dome to say Crypto.com Arena.

That tells me, that sends a message to me that Adam Silver is going to have a very very high burden of proof in order to give a Joe Smith-like punishment here.

So, I know that it’s not going to make a lot of owners happy and a lot of fans that don’t like the Los Angeles Clippers and what they’ve done here, but I do think that Adam Silver is kind of sending the message out there that this might not be the Joe Smith punishment, this might be something lighter than that.

It’s ‘possible’ NBA doesn’t punish Steve Ballmer and Clippers for Kawhi Leonard scandal

Tags: