This should be the minimum starting point as it sets a rule of precedent.

Stern also despised small market teams and used the Joe Smith situation to get revenge on the Wolves for signing KG to his league breaking contract. 

That was on an older collective bargaining agreement

SAS knows it but is pretending to offer a heavy handed solution. This is his way of preventing anything serious from happening to Ballmer, who he recently seemed interested in not pissing off.

Completely agree. Punishment should be one of the worst that we’ve ever seen in sports. But they simply won’t do it because he’s Ballmer. And I like Ballmer as an owner I think most teams and fans would want a guy like that, lol. But when you do shady shit like this there has to be punishment.

I don’t think anything will happen but this right here will be what Adam Silver is known for regardless of outcome so it can make or break him in terms of reputation

What’s the benefit of catering to him though? Like how is he being an owner helpful when all the others are billionaires too? Serious question because the only thing I think he’s better for is not staying under the cap. But the difference between that $ amount, and him setting a “you’ll cater to me because I’m richer” feels more harmful long term

I agree but tbh it’s already hard to expect much of the above to happen.

Also voiding Kawhi’s contract is a benefit to the clippers/Ballmer.

You would need every other owner to agree to kick him out. The league couldn’t force it.

Also, the harsher the punishment, the greater the likelihood that ballmer fights it in court. And if the league loses then they permanently lose that authority/power where at least today it’s a plausible threat.

Lastly, the players union would also likely be fighting this. So now you have ballmer and kawahi/the players union fighting you. You obviously punish, but there are a lot of considerations other than “throw the book at them”

Yeah if it were my decision:

- Lifetime ban for Steve Ballmer from NBA ownership, 2 year ban from NBA arenas
- Clippers lose 3 first round picks
- Kawhi loses 2 years of eligibility and cannot take any sponsorship deals while an NBA player

I think that’s harsh enough that other teams won’t attempt it, which should be the goal

The clippers facilitated the whole thing, it’s on the clippers. Kawhi may have asked, but clippers said yes. That’s solely on the Clippers for saying yes and facilitating

Would be so funny if they made 2 different people give up the clippers haha

Doug, kick him off the tour!

From what I remember though, Sterling wasn’t liked in league circles, while Ballmer is.

No way that’s happening

No way he gets ousted. I could see like a one season suspension where he can’t be there and isn’t supposed to be involved, but I just can’t see them actually ousting him. They should, I just don’t remotely think they have the balls

Nowhere in the agreement is that allowed.

²⁄₂ on getting Clippers owners out the league? let me get my popcorn ready

Force Ballmer to sell the team to another Dundon or Adelson. Someone good and cheap who will trade all their assets, extort the local tax base for their own profits, and screw over the fanbase. That’s much better for the league than an owner who spends too much of his own money on the team. 

I expect a “massive” fine and maybe some draft picks taken away but I doubt said fine will be anything truly significant relative to Ballmer’s net worth. He’ll just check the pockets of the pants in his laundry and find the money to pay said fine from there.

“When the punishment for a crime is only a fine the rule only exists for the poor”

It’s more like ownership. The league is collectively owned by franchise owners. The commissioner works for them. If enough of the owners want Ballmer punished, he’ll be punished. If they don’t, he’ll skate.

Unpopular opinion but there actually are worse things you can do as an owner

Ballmer should be forced to sell. I feel like Kawhi should be done in the NBA too. His contract should be voided. He was running a scam and got found out. Let there be real consequences. Owners and players negotiated and settled on a horrendous CBA. All of the rest of us are suffering the consequences of it except him.

Top 1% commenter gives classic over-reaction

😮

I guarantee you Ballmer is not the only one doing this, he is the only one caught. So far. Either they don’t do anything or they use him as a scapegoat to convince the masses that it was a one off.

Would you prefer another El Cheapo owner or another Adelson family obsessed with turning their arena into a casino complex and using the profits to fund genocide? 

Suspends baller from watching games is not a significant punishment to an owner.

Weren’t all these talking heads mocking Torre and defending Ballmer not that long ago? Why are they suddenly doing a 180? Because of the daktronics stuff?

Yes, I think this is probably a correct punishment if they want this crap to not happen again.

(I would like Ballmer gone, but he’s got money so he’ll probably be punishment free)

I love how Kawhi gets kicked out for the year and the team owner just gets banned from games lmao some of you people are clowns. The only thing that should happen to Kawhi is his contract gets voided if it was found he took benefits that went outside the cap. The actual bad action was from Ballmer and the team paying and setting up the schemes.

Well there’s another problem then. If you void his contract and allow him to play next season, teams only have the minimum (or near it) at this point in the offseason. Adding Kawhi for the minimum would completely disrupt the balance this season.

Imagine the Lakers, Spurs, Nuggets, etc. get him on a minimum. So the league office isn’t going to entertain that option. 

The commissioner would fully be within his rights to suspend Kawhi for the entire season for blatant and egregious cap circumvention

Yeah, crazy how many people are just ignoring the CBA, and seem to be expecting punishment going far beyond what it contemplates.

The best way to hurt Balmer sadly is to make it so that the Clippers can’t be competitively viable for years to come by stripping them of resources to build a proper team. And by making it so that they have a shitty team you hopefully make it so that nobody attends the games to support the team. That would hurt Balmer. But it also hurts the fans. No winning in this situation.

The thing is though this is not a court of law, the NBA does not need to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. I agree Ballmer won’t get punished but Silver has more than enough to punish him based off what we know

I disagree on this a little, tbh. If he had a full legal team here, they wouldn’t have allowed Kawhi’s LLCs to be traceable back to him.

I think this happens all the time. I said this in another post, but if Kawhi just made an appearance or two at this companies corporate events, this entire thing would be legal and normal.

Think about that - owners can get their sponsors and vendors to sign players for millions of dollars for basic appearances and it’s essentially the same this Kawhi did, but Kawhi just didn’t take a few hours to attend an event or two.

The delayed resolution is probably in part to several factors.  The Player’s Association will challenge any part of the consequences that relate to Kawhi, so they want as airtight a case as possible.  Not to mention that their investigation has expanded with the latest findings. 

The raptors assuming the risk was with respect to kawahi, not ballmer.

Can’t blame raptors FO for hitting the brakes on the trade. The investigation only seemed to start heating up once it looked like liability might somehow land on them rather than the clippers. But at this point not many teams have cap space to sign him if Silver voids his contract. Might as well wait and see what the outcome is, then try and sign Kawhi for much less than he’s worth for a year, keep your picks and players. If all that falls through it there’s no decision made by the time the season starts, then just run it back until the next trade window

Of course he wasn’t, SAS is well-known for being a clown.

The problem here is that Ballmer would fight that in court and we can almost guarantee that Kawhi isn’t the only one getting these types of deals even if no other is this size. As an example right after this story broke Wiggins posted a Pic with him looking dead inside promoting a random pasta brand. If Wiggins was getting no show deals actual stars absolutely are.