Why the Clippers’ ‘rejecting’ NBA’s findings likely won’t change Kawhi punishment
Yahoo Sports senior NBA analyst Kevin O'Connor reacts to the NBA's punishment towards the Clippers & owner Steve Ballmer for circumventing the salary cap by setting up no-show endorsement deals with Aspiration — and why the strength of the penalty likely means the league has a 'smoking gun'. Check out the full conversation on "The Kevin O'Connor Show" and subscribe on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , YouTube or wherever you listen.
Video Transcript
What are we going to get next?
We're going to get the NBA leaking or reporters digging into, depending on how you want to look at it, news and insights on what exactly they found.
We're going to get the Clippers leaking more of what they want people to know about what the NBA said to them.
Because again, in that statement, the Clippers said in this statement, what the league told us privately differs from what it announced today publicly.
That's an interesting line to me.
What the league told us privately differs from what it announced today publicly.
The league didn't have to tell you everything privately that they were going to announce publicly.
They might have been telling you certain things privately to try to get you to give up a little more information or offer a little bit more insight.
I don't know.
They might have had ulterior motives in terms of why they were talking to you privately.
Those quote-unquote negotiations that the Clippers, of course, leaked out to ESPN in that story a few weeks ago, trying to make it out to be like, we're going to get off easy.
I remember on my podcast that day reacting to it.
I was like, well, if this is true, it seems like they're going to get off easy.
Obviously, it wasn't true.
The NBA statement turned out to be, hey, well, this shouldn't be out there anyway.
We got a lot more stuff out there.
And they did based on what they announced today publicly.
So I don't really care too much for the Clippers saying that.
I don't think it matters what the Clippers said to the, what the NBA said to the Clippers publicly, privately.
I don't think it makes a difference what the NBA said to the Clippers privately.
What matters is the truth.
And clearly by docking the Clippers five first round picks and fining them $30 million and suspending the 10th, one of the top 10 richest guys in the world for a year.
The owner who sits courtside at games.
Ballmer is one of the most passionate owners, most invested owners in the league.
And for the NBA to suspend that guy, that rich guy who sits courtside and actually cares about the team.
He cares enough to cheat, allegedly.
They chose still to give this guy the harshest suspension and fine in the history of basketball.
That says to me that the NBA feels good about what the investigation found, even if they weren't telling the Clippers whatever it was privately.
I think that the NBA probably has some type of smoking gun here to go as far as they did.
Because I think this past year, what has it been?
Oh, the NBA is going to be afraid of Ballmer because he's so rich and he could sue them into oblivion.
Maybe they would have been if there wasn't a smoking gun or there wasn't strong evidence.
Maybe the NBA would have let him off easy with a one month suspension and one second round pick docked from them if they didn't have anything good, anything of substance.
But the fact they went this far, five first, one year suspension, $30 million, six months for Lawrence Frank.
I mean, damn.
