The result of the NBA's investigation into the Los Angeles Clippers and Kawhi Leonard for salary cap circumvention has brought devastating consequences onto the Clippers' heads, resulting in the forfeiture of five draft picks, a $30 million fine to Steve Ballmer personally and suspensions, Lawrence Frank and Gillian Zucker, leaving the front office in disarray. 

That's the kind of punishment that devastates the future of a franchise, especially one in the state the Clippers were already in as a team that's attempting to rebuild and sold off essentially all of their major stars to do it. 

So now the Clippers are looking at a situation where they don't really have a strong team at the present, they don't have a past of abundant success and they don't have much of a future to look forward to. 

This situation is essentially the worst-case scenario for the Clippers, but it seems like things didn't have to be this way and wouldn't have been this way if not for the intervention from Ballmer. 

As the NBA's investigation dragged on, the issue shifted from the league accumulating evidence against the Clippers to prove their case and became more about being able to find a punishment that Ballmer would find suitable and subsequently wouldn't challenge in an arbitration court. 

Throughout the entire process, Ballmer remained indignant that the investigation was happening at all and insistent that he and the Clippers were innocent of any wrongdoing, so it seemed like the idea of Ballmer settling on a punishment, thus implicitly admitting guilt, wasn't going to happen. 

But refusing to settle seems to be the exact reason that the hammer dropped so severely on the Clippers. 

As Pablo Torre, the reporter whose story started this entire process, said on a recent episode of his podcast "Pablo Torre Finds Out," Ballmer was "fundamentally uninterested in settling" and the result that followed from the NBA was described as the non-settling price.

That essentially means that there was a chance that Ballmer could have negotiated for a lighter punishment if he had just been willing to cooperate with the league, but Ballmer was so resolute in his stance that that the Clippers would be found innocent that he didn't even want to entertain those conversations. 

What's happened to the Clippers in the last few weeks can be a lesson in hubris, both for Leonard and for Ballmer.

While the circumstances of the salary cap circumvention itself already paint the picture of a player, owner and organization that sought to bend the rules for their own benefit, the idea that Ballmer could have avoided at least part of the team's punishment only reinforces that lesson from the outside.