NBA түүхэн дэх хамгийн хүнд шийтгэлийг Лос Анжелес Клипперс багт оноолоо

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The plan for today was to complete the Bounce position rankings with the top 40 forwards in the NBA. Then the league decided to give us the punishment for the LA Clippers. So we’re pushing the forward rankings to Tuesday’s edition. Yes, Celtics fans, Jayson Tatum is a forward, and that’s why he wasn’t in the wings rankings, just like last year.

Hammer time

Rating the severity of Clippers penalties

Adam Silver and the NBA finally levied a punishment on the Clippers on Wednesday after 364 days of an investigation into allegations of salary-cap circumvention. To catch you up, the Clippers were accused of getting no-show endorsement deals for Kawhi Leonard for millions of dollars. Leonard and the Clippers had been investigated before, but it never led to any sort of penalty. That is, until Pablo Torre decided to unleash an incredible investigation into Leonard and a company called Aspiration.

The NBA’s findings led to the largest punishment for a team in league history. It surpasses the league’s discipline of the Minnesota Timberwolves back in 2000 when they were discovered to have circumvented the salary cap for Joe Smith. The league has taken away half a decade of LA’s first-round picks, suspended the owner and executives, fined Leonard and banned Dennis “Uncle Dennis” Robertson from conducting NBA business for five years.

Let’s go through each penalty and levy a Clippers Punishment Adjudication (CPA) score for this devastating accounting issue by the franchise and Kawhi’s representation. It’s a scale of 1-to-5 🔨 emojis, with five being the most severe.

First-round picks in 2029, 2030, 2031, 2032 and 2033 were stripped. This is the heaviest of the punishments for the Clippers. We’ll get into how severe their draft situation is below, but taking away five first-round picks is entirely detrimental for roster construction. We don’t know what the draft/lottery system will be after 2029, but we know the Clippers won’t have much of an opportunity to participate in it until 2034. Not only does this affect bringing in cost-effective, young talent, but it also hurts their ability to make trades. That’s brutal in the second-apron era. CPA score: 🔨🔨🔨🔨🔨

Suspensions for owner Steve Ballmer, business executive Gillian Zucker and president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank: Ballmer is suspended for one year from all team activities (aside from signing checks and paying bills). Zucker is suspended for a year without pay, and it appears that giving misleading information to the NBA’s investigation was a big part of that. Frank is suspended for six months without pay but will be back during the regular season. We remind you he got a contract extension back in January. This is actually a pretty devastating suspension for Ballmer, who cannot even attend games. CPA score: 🔨🔨🔨🔨

Clippers fined $30 million: It’s the biggest team fine in league history, surpassing the Wolves’ $3.5 million fine for the Smith debacle. According to a very lazy Google search, Ballmer’s net worth is $152.4 billion. To put that into context, that fine is like $19.68 for someone making $100,000 a year. CPA score: 🔨🔨

Leonard fined $700,000: This was the most laughable aspect of the punishment. Leonard could have had his $50 million contract for this season voided. Instead, he pays the league 700k. It’s a lot of money, but consider that he made well over $20 million just from the Aspiration deal. And apparently, there were three other companies — Daktronics, Boingo Wireless (shoutout to airport WiFi 15 years ago!) and Lockton Insurance — paying him as well. CPA score: 🔨

Clippers subject to compliance monitoring program for five years: The NBA will possibly monitor the team for five years to make sure this doesn’t happen again. Does this matter? CPA score: 🔨

Uncle Dennis banned for five years: This is the second most-laughable aspect of the punishment. Uncle Dennis was “fired” by Kawhi back in June, and Leonard is his only known “client.” CPA score: 🔨

The picks and the suspensions matter the most. And, yes, it’s very easy for me to scoff at a $30 million fine for one of the richest people in the world. It’s an unreal amount of money, but I’m not sure his portfolio feels it. Here’s some other excellent stuff to read on this punishment and situation:

The last 24

💰 Big bag. The Rockets gave Amen Thompson a $208 million extension. Can he live up to his superstar potential?

🏀 He’s back. Ben Simmons is returning to the NBA. He signed a one-year deal with the Sacramento Kings.

🐺 Hungry like the Wolves. Minnesota has a lot of mouths to feed. How will the Timberwolves handle their new-look roster

Now what?

How will the Clippers move forward?

As you can imagine, the Clippers are angry at the NBA for this punishment. In a letter sent to Silver and distributed as a press release, the Clippers stated the league did not give the team a fair shake in the investigation. The Clippers claimed that the NBA broke its promises on what the investigation would entail. They called it a “witch hunt” and vowed to fight “gross injustice.”

They claim the NBA told them very different stuff behind closed doors and even said the league gave them less than an hour’s notice of the report and offered no chance to respond. The Clippers could try to block this via the legal system, but it’s unclear how likely it is they could actually reverse this decision. The NBA cut the legs out from arbitration or appeal when it got the players union on board with a slap on the wrist for Leonard.

How one of the richest people in the world will spend some dollars in the legal world is a story that will unfold in due time.

However, what does this mean for the Clippers from a basketball standpoint? Losing those first-round picks is severe. The team should complete the previously agreed-upon trade of Leonard to the Toronto Raptors for Brandon Ingram, Gradey Dick, a 2027 first-round swap, 2031 unprotected first, 2033 unprotected first- and second-round picks in 2030 and 2033.

So the Clippers will actually have some first-round picks at their disposal between the 2029 and 2033 drafts. I’ll remind you they got a 2029 first-rounder from the Indiana Pacers in the Ivica Zubac deal. Those picks have not been stripped.

With that in mind, Law Murray gave a grim look at how the drafts from 2022 to 2033 look for LA:

That’s right. The 2027 draft, as disappointing as it’s supposed to be, won’t yield a high pick to the Clippers, no matter what. The Thunder get to swap with the Clippers and send LA toward the end of the first round. They will have picks in 2029, 2031 and 2033 from the Pacers and Raptors, but the rest of that cupboard is basically bare. The 2028 pick is gone because of the James Harden trade in 2023.

The Clippers will hang their hopes on Ingram (29 years old, $41 million player option for 2027-28 season), Darius Garland (signed through 2027-28 season) and Keaton Wagler (the fifth pick in the 2026 draft). They have a couple of other young role players they might be optimistic about, but those three plus the future picks owed to them are what the Clippers have ahead of them.

Yes, things are grim. Yes, the Clippers are pretty much devastated. But they have to be very grateful they made the Zubac trade and that the deal with the Raptors is still expected to go through. This could, somehow, have been a lot worse.

Also, a brilliant idea from social media: from 2029-2033, have the winner of the NBA Cup receive the Clippers’ pick.

Poster child

Two Bulls legends square off

Every Friday this offseason, we’ve been having you, The Bouncer, vote on the greatest nostalgic basketball posters of the 1980s. We narrowed it down to a Final Four (please don’t sue me, NCAA) for these posters, with Moses Malone’s “Moses” and Chuck Person’s “Rifleman” going against each other last week.

Malone beat out The Rifleman with 55 percent of the vote. That means Moses moves on to the final, where he’ll face the winner between George Gervin’s “Iceman” and Michael Jordan’s “frame by frame dunk” poster. Gervin beat out Darrell Griffith’s “Dr. Dunkenstein” to get here. Jordan beat out Larry Bird’s “Bird Nest” poster. Now these two former Bulls legends go against each other this week:

Which poster should advance? Sound off in the comments.