NBA-гийн удирдлагууд цалингийн цэзний дүрэм зөрчсөн Лос Анжелес Клипперс багийн эзэн Стив Балмер болон багийн удирдлагуудад оноосон хатуу шийтгэлийг хэвээр үлдээхээр шийдвэрлэжээ.
NBA-гийн комиссар Адам Силвер мягмар гарагт болсон Захирагчдын зөвлөлийн хурлын дараа Лос Анжелес Клипперс багт оноосон сахилгын шийтгэл эцсийнх бөгөөд давж заалдах боломжгүй гэдгийг мэдэгдлээ. Энэхүү шийдвэрийн дагуу багийн эзэн Стив Балмер болон бизнесийн үйл ажиллагаа хариуцсан ерөнхийлөгч Гиллиан Зукер нарыг нэг жилийн хугацаатай, сагсан бөмбөгийн үйл ажиллагаа хариуцсан ерөнхийлөгч Лоуренс Фрэнк-ийг зургаан сарын хугацаатай тус тус эрхээ хасуулж, албан тушаалаас нь түдгэлзүүлсэн шийдвэр хэвээр үлдэв. Түүнчлэн Стив Балмерын төлсөн 30 сая долларын торгууль буцаан олгогдохгүй бөгөөд 2029-2033 оны хоорондох таван удаагийн драфтын эхний тойргийн эрхээ баг алдсан хэвээр байна.
Стив Балмер ням гарагт багийн хөгжөөн дэмжигчид болон ажилтнуудаасаа уучлалт гуйж, хариуцлага хүлээхээ илэрхийлсэн ч энэ нь оноосон шийтгэлийг хөнгөлөх үндэслэл болохгүй юм. Адам Силвер багийн гол тоглогч Кавай Леонардыг шийтгэлээс чөлөөлж, түүнийг Торонто Рэпторс руу солилцоогоор явахыг зөвшөөрсөн нь багийн эздийг цалингийн цэзний дүрэм зөрчихөөс урьдчилан сэргийлэх хатуу дохио боллоо гэж шинжээчид үзэж байна.
Лигийн зүгээс Кавай Леонардад 700,000 долларын торгууль ногдуулсан нь харьцангуй бага дүн боловч энэхүү алхам нь Стив Балмерын зүгээс лигийн шийдвэрийг арбитрын шүүхээр эсэргүүцэх боломжийг хаасан юм. NBA-гийн зүгээс Кавай Леонард болон Торонто Рэпторс багийн хоорондох солилцоог саатуулаагүй бөгөөд тоглогч ирэх зун Торонто Рэпторстой гэрээгээ сунгах төлөвтэй байна. Лигийн удирдлагууд цалингийн цэзний дүрэм зөрчих нь багийн бизнесийн загварт ноцтой хохирол учруулдаг тул ирээдүйд ийм зөрчил гаргахгүй байхыг бусад багийн эздэд санууллаа.
Дэлгэрэнгүй эх сурвалжийг харах
Эх сурвалжийг нээх ↓
NEW YORK — There will be no mercy.
“The discipline is final,” Adam Silver said Tuesday.
You learn, in covering the NBA, never to say never. But Silver’s words after the Board of Governors meeting don’t leave any wiggle room for Steve Ballmer or the LA Clippers to appeal the unprecedented penalties the league issued a week ago against both the league’s wealthiest owner and his basketball team.
That means the yearlong suspensions Silver gave Ballmer and team president of business operations, Gillian Zucker, along with the six-month suspension levied against president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank, will stand. It means Ballmer will not get back any of the $30 million fine he said he’s already paid. Most importantly, it means those five consecutive first-round picks the league docked between 2029 and 2033 will remain unavailable. The NBA will not, as it did when the Minnesota Timberwolves were cited for cap circumvention by the late former commissioner David Stern in their free-agent contract with Joe Smith in 2000, return any picks for good behavior during the suspensions.
Ballmer’s mea culpa late Sunday night— in which he apologized to the team’s fans and employees, and to his fellow governors, for “the distraction and distress” the circumvention case caused, and that he “accepted responsibility” for said distraction/distress — does not grease the skids for revisiting the punishment down the road.
Stern’s superpower was intimidating the people that were his bosses, at whose pleasure he served, when it came to business. If you weren’t holding up your end on spending for your arenas, marketing, or sales, Stern would read you the riot act, no matter how lucrative your portfolio. And his rich bosses would fall into place. Silver isn’t bombastic like that, but his actions against the Clippers — laser-focused and consequential — spoke volumes.
Silver is standing on business. In doing so, he made one thing clear: The NBA thought it more important to go after the bigger, more difficult target to reach, rather than the more famous, easier one.
Pablo Torre reflects on the NBA’s historic ruling in the Kawhi Leonard case
The league did not suspend Kawhi Leonard, who was at the center of all the circumvention schemes. It did not void his contract. It did not order him to return any of the money he made from any of the side deals he had with companies seeking to do future business with the Clippers — and those deals were the basis for the cap-circumvention investigation for which Silver ultimately popped Ballmer, Zucker, Frank and the team.
In fact, the NBA not only let Leonard walk, but it also made a deal with him and the National Basketball Players Association, which negotiated on his behalf. By doing so, the league cornered Ballmer; the star was, if not a witness for the prosecution, not going to object to their version of the findings, either. The union signed off on the deal, with the $700,000 fine the NBA issued Leonard being, we can all agree, chump change.
Some of y’all may not like it. But this was hardball. And Silver brought the heat.
A lot of fansdon’t think it was fair that the NBA let Leonard skate, then be able to leave town scot-free, getting to return to the Toronto Raptors in a previously agreed-to trade. The league did not delay the deal, letting the teams finalize it Monday. That means, as Silver surely knows, Leonard will be able to rake in even more cash next summer, when he’s almost certain to sign an extension with Toronto, which he helped lead to the 2019 NBA title.
But the commissioner concluded it was more important to send a message to the league’s other teams and their (mostly) billionaire owners — If you’re dumb enough to try me again when it comes to dodging the cap, this is gonna happen to you, too — than it was to fight with Leonard and the union. And by making the deal, the NBA removed the one card Ballmer could play: arbitration, which can only be initiated against the league by the player and/or union, on his behalf.
This matters.
The NBA has never had more money flowing throughout its teams. Franchise valuations are spiking. Ratings for last season’s regular season and playoffs, fueled by the league’s $77 billion media-rights deal, were among the highest in the last three decades. But that has an underside: franchise-sale roulette, with multiple teams being bought up in the last few years — sometimes, with unforeseen, problematic results. Player trades increasingly seem more about money, or as much about money, as they do about player/draft-pick quality.
And … gambling’scorrosive path through wide swaths of the league shows no signs of stopping. Accountability, to markets and fans, started to feel like a quaint notion.
In hitting Ballmer this hard, though, Silver was clear: There are limits.
High-ranking people around the league told me Tuesday afternoon that they agreed with the punishment, even though they like Ballmer personally and respect the work he’s put into the league since buying the Clippers in 2014 — both by serving on league committees and by spending lavishly on his team, as well as Intuit Dome. But protecting the collective bargaining agreement and the cap, they said, is that important to the business model of the league.
It won’t stop players and agents from asking for extra money or perks, but that will never change.
“They won’t get it, especially now,” one official said.
Ballmer, in his statement, said “there are still disagreements concerning the findings in the report,” though he won’t fight the punishment. Nor did he admit to any of the cap-circumvention charges levied against him and the team in the Wachtell report. I asked Silver Tuesday if that would matter in any way when Ballmer’s suspension ends.
“I think, in terms of Steve’s statement, I’d, say, putting aside the precise words he chose to use most importantly, he indicated a willingness to accept the league’s decision, in this case, and the accompanying sanctions,” Silver said. “So, that, initially, was what I was most focused on — which is markedly different than the initial statements that came out of his organization. I think there will be ample time to have additional conversations with him over the next year, and also, this is not information that I’m sharing from a direct conversation with the Clippers’ organization. But, again … there are other (legal) inquiries that have nothing to do with the NBA, that the Clippers and Steve Ballmer are now dealing with. My assumption is, in some cases, he has to choose his words carefully, in terms of what he’s saying.
“Aside from that, I appreciate the fact that he has stood down, that he did apologize and is accepting responsibility. Our plan is to move forward and have every reason to believe that at the end-of-the-year period, he will return to be an owner in good standing.”
Did Steve Ballmer lie about Kawhi Leonard?
We may never know if the league was in serious negotiations with the Clippers to settle before the report came out, as was stated in the now-controversial ESPN report last month that also said the NBA had found no evidence Ballmer “funneled money through team sponsors to pay Kawhi Leonard in order to circumvent” the cap.
The Wachtell report, though, said that Ballmer, Zucker and Frank were “primarily and directly culpable for this misconduct. In addition, Steve Ballmer, owner of the Clippers and its affiliates, knowingly sought to help Mr. Leonard obtain off-court income opportunities and, in at least one instance, engaged in a significant act of team facilitation. Mr. Ballmer also failed to create conditions under which his organization abided by the NBA’s circumvention rules — an especially egregious lapse because the Clippers are a prior offender of those rules and were previously and specifically investigated by the NBAwith respect to Mr. Leonard.”
The question remains how this will play out in future collective bargaining discussions with the union; the current CBA runs through 2030, though either the league or the union could reopen talks a year earlier. The union has centered on what it believes are the chilling effects of the second apron as a place to put a marker down for changes to the next CBA. Seeing the lengths to which the Clippers went with Leonard certainly allows the union to make the argument that owners are being handcuffed by the rules from spending more on their stars.
But that’s a discussion for another day. Today, after some very rocky times the last couple of years, dealing with the lottery and load management and other thorny issues, Silver finally has a little wind at his back.
