6 winners, 5 losers from Kawhi Leonard scandal after Clippers get hit with NBA ‘death penalty’

The Los Angeles Clippers circumvented the salary cap to funnel extra money to Kawhi Leonard for his commitment to the team, and they were caught red-handed. The NBA dropped the hammer on the Clippers on Wednesday after a one-year investigation into the allegations first uncovered by journalist Pablo Torre. The NBA decided to dock the Clippers five future first-round draft picks while suspending governor Steve Ballmer for a year as punishment for Leonard’s no-show endorsement deal with Aspiration and other companies. This is a massive penalty, and it could ruin the Clippers for the next decade.

The NBA had precedent to punish cap circumvention with the 2000 Joe Smith scandal that stripped the Minnesota Timberwolves of five first-round picks back when David Stern was commissioner (though two picks were eventually returned). Adam Silver followed through after a thorough investigation by top-rated law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen, & Katz. While Leonard and Ballmer came away with relatively small fines compared to their level of wealth, Clippers fans and players suffer after receiving this devastating penalty.

Still, the NBA got it right. This was a job well done by Silver and the league office. Let’s go through the winners and losers of this historic NBA story.

Winner: Pablo Torre

Torre was named in the first sentence of the report on the NBA’s findings. His independent reporting started this investigation and led to the one of the biggest punishments in sports history. He went after a billionaire for cheating the system, and he was completely vindicated. This ruling is an incredible victory for Torre, yes, and also for journalism. At its core, journalism isn’t about scooping a press release by a few hours — it’s about finding the truth, holding power accountable, and giving unbiased, verified information to the public. Torre did that by taking on one of the richest billionaires in the world and continuing to stand strong in his reporting despite a massive smear campaign against him. Hopefully, he inspires a younger generation of journalists to keep searching for the truth in a dying field.

Winner: Adam Silver

It would have been convenient for Silver to sweep this under the rug. Ballmer has been a great owner for the NBA, pouring tons of money into a stale Clippers franchise and doing everything he can to revitalize a dormant organization in one of the league’s biggest markets. This punishment could potentially turn off other sponsors, who now might worry they’re doing something wrong if they agree to endorsement deals with players, which happens for all 30 teams. Silver has always made his top priority protecting the league’s money, but in some ways it came at the risk of losing integrity. There was simply too much evidence in the report by Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen, & Katz to ignore. Silver made the difficult decision to punish the league’s richest owner and stand up for the league’s rules to help ensure competitive balance. I was ready to roast Silver if he let the Clippers off the hook. Instead, I’m applauding his judgment. The NBA has more integrity today than it did yesterday because of this ruling. The other owners are fully put on notice that you can’t just spend your way past the rules. Silver laid down the law, and he deserves all the credit for it.

Winner: Kawhi Leonard

Leonard has to pay back $700K in restitution for improper benefits. Aside from that? He’s getting off scot free despite being the central figure in this entire fiasco. I suppose Leonard can hide behind the idea that it was Uncle Dennis asking for all these endorsement deals, not him. Sure, man. The reality is that Leonard was one of the best players in the NBA at the time, but he wasn’t landing the same endorsements as LeBron James, Stephen Curry, and Kevin Durant because he has a bizarre, off-putting personality away from the court. Kawhi is a robot. Uncle Dennis made it his mission to get Leonard the money he thought he deserved, but the problem is he refused to do any actual work for any of it. I really feel like the Clippers could have evaded this entire debacle if Leonard would have just shared some Instagram posts, taken a few pictures, and planted a few trees. Instead, Leonard did absolutely nothing. The Clippers essentially funneled money to various sponsors as a way to give Kawhi a little extra. Kawhi’s reputation took a hit in this, for sure, but it didn’t impact his money or his career. The trade to the Raptors will finalize soon, and shortly after that, Kawhi will probably sign the last huge contract extension of his career. I think Toronto is good enough to potentially reach the NBA Finals with Leonard next season. What a story that would be after all this nonsense.

Loser: The Clippers

Obviously. The 2020s are fully cooked for the Clippers, and they’re probably screwed for the 2030s, too. Let’s move on to the next one.

Loser: ESPN

ESPN seemed to get out of the business of journalism a long time ago, but their coverage of this story was lazy at best and flat-out dishonest at worst. This company once had Pablo Torre and many other great reporters on staff. Now all of their money goes to Pat McAfee and Stephen A. Smith. Torre broke this story, and ESPN’s reporters, with far more resources, never advanced it and seemed to spend most of their time covering up for a lying mega billionaire. ESPN’s bad coverage started with Ramona Shelburne’s softball interview with Ballmer shortly after the allegations broke. Go back and watch it now, and it looks totally pathetic for every party involved. Two weeks before the Wachtell report dropped, ESPN published a story with this headline:

Shams Charania’s byline was originally on that story, but it’s not today after the punishment dropped. Weird! ESPN’s report said that there was no evidence of Ballmer funneling money to sponsors to get Kawhi endorsement deals. Wachtell sure found a lot of evidence after Torre pointed them in the right direction. ESPN’s podcasts like The Hoop Collective, which I often listen to, also never really took the story seriously. ESPN’s reporters dropped the ball at every turn. It’s a truly humiliating moment for the company, and it’s the ultimate proof that it has no interest in trying to do actual journalism anymore.

Loser: Keaton Wagler

The Clippers were arguably the luckiest team of the 2026 NBA Draft lottery. Los Angeles landed the Indiana Pacers’ first-round pick in the Ivica Zubac trade, but it was top-4 protected. That pick came in at No. 5, which meant the Clippers got it, and they used it to draft Illinois guard Keaton Wagler. I feel for Wagler today more than anyone else. Wagler is now joining a franchise with a dead-end future who won’t be able to pair him with other talented young players moving forward because of this penalty. The Clippers badly need Wagler to turn into a superstar, and it could still happen, but now it feels like he’s destined to spend the first half of his career next to a bunch of cast-offs and veteran free agents. Whatever optimism Wagler felt about his future with the Clippers has to be crushed now.

Loser: Clippers fans

Steve Ballmer is still one of the richest people in the world. Kawhi Leonard got away scot free. The people who will truly feel this punishment are Clippers fans, as if they didn’t have it bad enough already. The Clippers were a terrible franchise in the ‘80s, ’90s, and ‘00s. Things started to tick up when they traded for Chris Paul and drafted Blake Griffin, but those teams never made it out of the second round. It really felt like the Kawhi and Paul George era was going to bring the Clippers sustained success and possibly a championship. They were my 2020 title pick! Instead, Kawhi basically played half a season every season during his time in Los Angeles, and the furthest they ever made it was a conference finals. Now the franchise is totally decimated for at least the next 10 years. First round picks don’t just give teams the ability to acquire good young players, they are also the currency to make transactions. It’s like the Clippers have a gun without any bullets now. If the Clippers have any sense, they should make the tickets and the merchandise much more affordable going forward. The team has no hope for the future because it cheated and got caught. The least they could do entertain their fans for an affordable price. Ballmer doesn’t need the extra money anyway.

Winner: Lakers fans

I’m almost disgusted by how happy Lakers fans are in this. Their joy is palpable. The Clippers have never been a real threat to the Lakers’ dominance inside or outside of Los Angeles, but now the Clippers are completely cooked. Lakers fans couldn’t be happier.

Winner: NBA integrity

The NBA still has plenty of problems, to be sure. The regular season is too long (this is the biggest one), the style of play leads to too many injuries, officiating is inconsistent (hey, it’s the hardest sport in the world to officiate), the end of games drag out forever with commercial stoppages and challenges, etc. I do think the NBA has more integrity today than it did yesterday with this Clippers punishment, though. It would have been really easy for Adam Silver to essentially sweep this under the rug with a light punishment. He didn’t do that. He made an example out of the Clippers, which was absolutely essential given that the league now basically operates with a hard cap. The league had to come out with an iron fist to deter this type of thing from happening again. In this case, the punishment fit the crime. Add in the new anti-tanking rules (which I don’t like, but hey), and the NBA might actually have some good PR on their side for the first time in years.

Winner: Players’ Union

The union is the reason that Kawhi got away with all this with a slap on the wrist. If the NBA tried to void Kawhi’s contract, the league was going to have a major fight on its hands with the union, and this would have been tied up in arbitration forever. The NBA Players’ Association kind of took one on the chin in the last CBA negotiations by allowing the second apron to create a subtle hard cap, but this case showed its power. The union protected Kawhi from punishment for his many misdeeds while the Clippers got hammered. We should all be lucky enough to have a union like the NBAPA on our side.

Loser: Steve Ballmer

He’s still rich, but his reputation is ruined. He thought the rules didn’t apply to him, and he was caught red-handed. He was supposed to be the man to bring the Clippers out of the dark ages, and instead he’ll forever be remembered in NBA circles as the guy who cheated, lied about it, and got busted. All that money can’t buy a good reputation. Ballmer’s is finished.