The league took five first-round picks and a year of Steve Ballmer's life, but the player who collected the money walked away with a fine and his contract untouched.
Steve Ballmer will spend the next year suspended from his own team, and the player at the center of it will spend that year playing basketball.
That is the odd ending to the NBA's investigation of the Los Angeles Clippers, which closed on Wednesday with the team losing its first-round picks from 2029 through 2033, paying a $30 million fine and seeing Ballmer and president of business operations Gillian Zucker suspended for a year and Lawrence Frank for six months.
Kawhi Leonard was ordered to pay the league $700,000.
There was no suspension and no voided contract, even though the report found he broke the rules by pressuring the team through his uncle and former business manager Dennis Robertson for off-court income, taking that income and never repaying personal expenses.
Robertson got a five-year ban, but Leonard kept the money.
Why the League Stopped at a Fine
The wording of the ruling explains plenty, because the NBA said Leonard violated the rules through the conduct of Robertson on his behalf, which put the uncle in front.
Leonard leaned into that in his statement, saying "I entered into my contract with the Clippers as well as the agreements in question in good faith, fully committed to fulfilling my obligations and with no knowledge of any intent on anyone's part to circumvent the salary cap."
The other reason is the union, as Howard Beck of The Ringer wrote that the league could have suspended Leonard or voided his contract, which has one year and $50 million left, but the players association would have fought it hard.
Joe Smith lost his Minnesota deal more than 25 years ago because a written agreement tied it to the scheme, and nothing like that turned up.
So the league took a fine the union would accept, and both sides made every penalty final with no appeal.
After a case that dragged on for nearly a year, the league wanted this closed more than it wanted a fight.
Fair to the League, Not to the Clippers
The ruling holds up legally, but it fails as basketball justice.
The report says the deals with Boingo Wireless, Daktronics and Lockton Insurance paid Leonard $18 million by August 2021 with minimal work required, before counting the four-year, $28 million Aspiration agreement that started it.
A $700,000 bill against that money is a rounding error, and he keeps a max contract that exists because the Clippers bent the rules.
Ballmer, who per ESPN's Ramona Shelburne was reportedly negotiating a settlement before the ruling, earned his suspension, but the player who gained the most should not be the only one coming out ahead.
Los Angeles gets the bill.
Leonard averaged 27.9 points in 65 games last season for a team that finished 42-40 and ninth in the West, and the trade sending him to Toronto for Brandon Ingram, Gradey Dick and picks was still not official as of Friday morning, though ESPN's Shams Charania reported it should close within days.
The Clippers open the preseason against the Warriors in Hawaii on October 4, and by then Leonard will most likely be gone while the franchise that paid him spends a decade paying for it.
