We hope it was worth it.
On Wednesday, the NBA laid the hammer down on the Los Angeles Clippers as a result of an investigation into salary-cap circumvention in relation to forward Kawhi Leonard’s 2021 extension, including fining the team $30 million and suspending owner Steve Ballmer from all league and team activities for the entire 2026-27 season.
President of business operations Gillian Zucker received a one-year ban, and president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank six months, both without pay.
But most consequential was the league’s decision to strip the Clippers of five future first-round picks from 2029-33.
For all that trouble, one would think the franchise would have gotten at least one NBA title out of it. Instead, the Clippers only have a one-way ticket to the bottom of the league.
Clippers will have a hard time recovering from Kawhi Leonard investigation fallout
The Clippers were already a team in decline before the league decided on punishment, which will make it even harder to build a contender in future seasons.
Los Angeles went 42-40 last season and missed the postseason for the first time since three consecutive first-round exits from 2022-25. In June, the franchise began to turn the page from the Leonard era when selecting Illinois guard Keaton Wagler with the No. 5 overall pick acquired in Ivica Zubac’s trade to the Indiana Pacers.
The following month, the Clippers agreed to trade Leonard, who received a $700,000 fine as part of the cap circumvention case, back to the Toronto Raptors, his home in 2018-19.
Earlier Wednesday, before the Clippers’ punishment was revealed, The Athletic’s Law Murray wrote about the crossroads the franchise finds itself at entering the 2026-27 season.
He cited a quote from Lawrence in June, when he acknowledged to reporters, “We understand we’re not contenders. We’re competitive. How are we gonna get back to contention?”
With the organization’s top leaders suspended, those questions will linger well into the upcoming campaign. And depending on when Frank’s suspension officially begins, it’s unclear how active Los Angeles will be ahead of the Feb. 11, 2027 trade deadline to improve the roster.
The Clippers won’t be in any position to outbid teams for disgruntled stars, either, due to their inability to trade any future first-round picks, as “Third Apron” podcast host and cap analyst Yossi Gozlan noted online.
The lack of first-round picks will also keep the Clippers from building through the draft. Without any alterations to the Leonard trade, Los Angeles will recoup two first-round picks (2031, 2033) from Toronto, and it also has one in the upcoming 2027 draft. But that won’t be anywhere near enough for the Clips to build a competitive roster. The franchise will be feeling this punishment for years, maybe even longer than the time it had Leonard.
“We had a run, we came up short,” Lawrence recently said, per The Athletic. He added, “So now, it’s time to start a new run. And we’re doing this all the while of never, never trying to be bad.”
The NBA may have just made that impossible.