{"id":326333,"date":"2025-10-07T09:20:15","date_gmt":"2025-10-07T09:20:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/326333\/"},"modified":"2025-10-07T09:20:15","modified_gmt":"2025-10-07T09:20:15","slug":"why-the-clippers-potential-punishment-will-have-ripple-effect-across-the-nba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/326333\/","title":{"rendered":"Why the Clippers\u2019 potential punishment will have \u2018ripple effect\u2019 across the NBA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yahoo Sports senior NBA analyst Kevin O\u2019Connor is joined by Amin Elhassan to discuss the ongoing investigation into salary cap circumvention by Steve Ballmer and Los Angeles – including why it could open up a \u201cbucket of worms\u201d that the league may want to avoid. Check out the full conversation on \u201cThe Kevin O\u2019Connor Show\u201d and subscribe on Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Spotify<\/a>, YouTube<\/a> or wherever you listen.<\/p>\n

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Video Transcript<\/p>\n

What’s gonna happen with the Clippers?<\/p>\n

Like this, this, this can’t be anything other than number one on everyone’s agenda because this has real implications that go far beyond opening week, opening night, or whatever.<\/p>\n

This could not only impact this season for the Clippers, but perhaps the next four to six seasons, you know, if the league comes down with the type of judgment.<\/p>\n

That is within its purview.<\/p>\n

You’re talking about something that could set this franchise back for quite a while.<\/p>\n

It seems like this is enough based off of the rules of the collective bargaining agreement.<\/p>\n

The circumstantial evidence is pretty unexplainable, right?<\/p>\n

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But does the NBA just wanna sweep this under the rug because they know, maybe they know there’s other teams that have done this and it opens up a can of worms that they don’t want to deal with.<\/p>\n

I’ve, I’ve said this a bunch of times.<\/p>\n

If this were Jim Dolan, if this were the Knicks, they would have thrown the kitchen sink at him.<\/p>\n

It would be a swift and unequivocal adjudication.<\/p>\n

But because I think people like Steve Ballmer and all, obviously, he represents a massive amount of wealth and power, I kind of don’t wanna see the book being thrown at a guy who seems to be like a pretty cool guy, all things considered.<\/p>\n

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For sure, I mean, but you have to do it though, if there is enough to show that this guy and the people around him did indeed what it seems like they did, and ultimately for the Clippers, this being part of the story, A, because it could deter other teams from doing it if they do punish them, or it could influence other teams to say, well, they got a little slap on the wrist, we’re gonna decide to do this, and then for the immediate future, from a pure basketball standpoint.<\/p>\n

How does this affect the team that has championship aspirations?<\/p>\n

The joke is, oh, it would be doing the Clippers a favor if they voided Kawhi Leonard’s contract because, well, the idea is that because he hasn’t been available, right?<\/p>\n

And he’s healthy now for the first time in a very long time.<\/p>\n

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What if he’s awesome right now?<\/p>\n

What if the Clippers are the number one seed?<\/p>\n

Then what happens to the conversation?<\/p>\n

It goes, ah, whatever, like they paid all this money for the injured guy.<\/p>\n

Now all of a sudden, if he’s playing the way that we know he’s capable of playing and the Clippers are winning.<\/p>\n

How does that flip the conversation?<\/p>\n

Wait a second, they cheated and they shouldn’t be able and all that stuff in the meantime as the, you know, the investigation goes on.<\/p>\n

Close<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Yahoo Sports senior NBA analyst Kevin O\u2019Connor is joined by Amin Elhassan to discuss the ongoing investigation into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":326334,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3789],"tags":[27665,7,559,2884,4034,192,4032,251,135,4033,4031,6,3677],"class_list":{"0":"post-326333","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-clippers","8":"tag-amin-elhassan","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-clippers","11":"tag-kevin-oconnor","12":"tag-la","13":"tag-la-clippers","14":"tag-laclippers","15":"tag-los-angeles","16":"tag-los-angeles-clippers","17":"tag-losangeles","18":"tag-losangelesclippers","19":"tag-nba","20":"tag-steve-ballmer"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115332148473091132","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326333","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=326333"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/326333\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/326334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=326333"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=326333"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=326333"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}