The Los Angeles Clippers are slowly picking up the pieces left in the wake of the NBA's devastating punishment after their investigation into the Clippers for salary cap circumvention. 

One of the biggest areas that the Clippers needed to address after the NBA handed down it's punishment was finding out who was going to lead the team through this difficult time.

While the forfeiture of draft picks and the fine handed to owner Steve Ballmer of $30 million are both problematic for Los Angeles, the true dysfunction caused by the punishment came from the suspension the NBA issued to the Clippers. 

Ballmer and president of business operations Gillian Zucker were both suspended for one year while president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank was suspended for six months.

While the Clippers have already addressed the chaos in the front office caused by Frank's suspension by naming a pair of new decision makers, but the executive void left by Ballmer's suspension was the next problem to address. 

To solve that problem, the Clippers have named Los Angeles-based lawyer John Gibson as interim governor and CEO, per a report from ESPN's Shams Charania. Ballmer reportedly nominated Gibson and the NBA has since approved him for the role.

"I am honored to take on this responsibility and grateful for the opportunity to serve an organization I have supported for many years," Gibson said in a statement (via ESPN). 

Gibson is certainly joining the franchise at a chaotic time, with both the reckoning of the NBA's punishment, which Ballmer recently accepted in a statement that put any thought of him legally challenging the verdict to bed, and the team's ongoing rebuild to manage. 

Gibson is a long-time season ticket holder for the Clippers and was a litigation partner at DLA Piper, a Los Angeles-based firm. He was a graduate of Harvard and the University of Michigan Law School. 

In his role as interim CEO and governor, Gibson will be overseeing the general basketball and business operations of the franchise, as wide-reaching as those responsibilities may be. 

This state of chaos that the Clippers find themselves in likely won't let up any time soon, especially not with some of the most executive personnel within the organization suspended, so Gibson's biggest task will likely be simply keeping the peace within the organization while they try to wait out these suspensions. 

There's a lot of work ahead of the Clippers and Gibson to keep the organization functional during this time, but securing any kind of leadership to keep the ship afloat is the best thing that the team can do at this time.