The NBA's punishment of the Los Angeles Clippers for salary cap circumvention has been far-reaching and introduced a myriad of issues, some more direct in their impact on the organization while other are more of a domino effect that can hurt the team in the long run.

The directly felt impacts are the ones that are more material in their nature, those being the forced-forfeiture of five first-round picks from the Clippers, which has a devastating impact by itself on a team that has sold off all of their major stars in order to facilitate a rebuild. 

The other material impact is the $30 million fine issued to owner Steve Ballmer personally, which is certainly a massive chunk of change, but one that someone of Ballmer's net worth can at least manage to pay. 

The more abstract issue created by the NBA's punishment, and the issue that the Clippers are dealing with right now, is the shakeup that the NBA has caused to the governing structure of the team. 

Ballmer and president of business operations Gillian Zucker were both suspended for one-year for their knowledge and involvement in the circumvention while president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank was suspended for six months, so in one fell swoop, the Clippers suddenly left without three top executives.

This shakeup introduced bedlam and confusion to the Clippers front office, a front office that according to a report from Chris Mannix is still in "chaos."

"I had a source that is plugged into the Clippers. This person told me that in the front office right now, they were leaderless," Mannix said in a video posted to the Sports Illustrated Youtube channel. "It's chaos over there as they're trying to figure out who's calling the shots, who's the ultimate decision-maker and who can sign off on this Kawhi Leonard deal."

The Clippers' trade of Leonard to the Toronto Raptors was initially delayed after the NBA's verdict was handed out specifically because the team was so suddenly left without a leader. It has since been approved, sending Leonard up north while the Clippers received Brandon Ingram, Gradey Dick and multiple first and second-round picks.

The fact that the trade did finally go through was an indication that the Clippers had at least found temporary leadership and a recent report stated that general manager Trent Redden and senior vice president and assistant general manager Mark Hughes have been named the primary decision makers for the Clippers for the time being.

So there's been some respite from the chaos that the team has fallen into for the last few weeks, but while some semblance of stability is a good thing, there will only be more trials to come for the Clippers.