Inside diehard Clippers fans’ minds after Kawhi Leonard scandal, NBA punishment

LOS ANGELES — The LA Clippers are entering the next stage of their franchise’s history after the NBA handed down one of the harshest punishments in sports for their involvement in the Kawhi Leonard scandal.

It’s been one week since the NBA announced the findings of their investigation into the Clippers and allegations of salary cap circumvention with superstar Kawhi Leonard. By now, everyone knows the results. Five future first round picks gone. Steve Ballmer gone for a year and fined $30 million. Gillian Zucker gone for a year. Lawrence Frank gone for six months.

The Clippers quickly released a series of statements, one in response to the NBA’s investigation and the second a lengthy letter to Adam Silver about his decision.

But what the Clippers have yet to do at this stage is reach out to their fans. Seven days after the punishment was handed down and fans’ worlds seemingly crumbled, the Clippers have yet to send a message of any kind to their fans.

The same fanbase that had to watch Donald Sterling get ousted by new the NBA Commissioner is now watching as Adam Silver once again punishes their franchise.

Trust has been lost. What should be a release for fans through their hard-earned money is now seemingly gone.

ClutchPoints spoke exclusive with a handful of diehard fans of the LA Clippers franchise, all of whom are or have been long-time season ticket holders, to get an idea of where their mind is at with the NBA’s punishment and what they want to see from the Clippers moving forward. Each fan was granted anonymity in order to speak freely on the subject.

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Question 1: What was your general Reaction to the news when it came down last week?

Fan No. 1:

It’s obviously, it’s kind of like a disgust. At first, jokingly, it was more like, ‘man, I kind of wish you just didn’t get caught,’ kind of thing. You expect this to happen all the time with all the teams. At least I do. I’m surprised they got caught.

Fan No. 2:

I was shocked that it was so severe. Based on waiting 10 months and all these different reports leaking out, I was just really, really surprised. I thought they might get like one first round draft pick, maximum two first round draft picks taken away. I thought Kawhi might get suspended for 25 games. I mean, he got off unscathed, $700,000 is a joke for a guy that took 30 million dollars on the side. And yeah, I mean, it was pretty devastating. I don’t think the Clippers are dead. Like everyone’s saying, I mean, they’re going to get a couple picks back in this trade. I think that they’ll still be able to build a decent team in a couple of years with salary cap space, being in L.A. But it obviously was not good and it really made the whole Kawhi signing so awful.

Fan No. 3:

I mean the first reaction was like shock. Because one, I mean one that ESPN story had come out like two weeks before saying that they didn’t find any credible evidence that the clippers had done anything wrong. All of a sudden, all my group texts were like going off saying the clippers were found guilty of cap circumvention and it had the punishment laid out. I’m like dude that can’t be real. At first, I was shocked and really disappointed. We support the team, we’re fans, and you really want to root for them but this makes it kind of tough. It kind of goes against everything. The investigations been going on for like what like a year, fans have been defending the team for a year. I mean you make everyone look like idiots because you’re all defending them. As a fan, there’s so much like working against you as a Clippers fan to begin with. Them being the clippers is already tough, the no championship thing, all the bad years. Donald Sterling is out and you get Ballmer and you’re like, oh, this is you know, this is such a breath of fresh air to have such a cool owner. You have something to look forward to. And then everything goes downhill again, so it’s kind of the life of a clippers fan.

Fan No. 4:

Yeah, definitely shocked. I feel like the biggest losers in all this are the fans. $30 million is a lot of money obviously, but to Steve Ballmer that’s like $20 and Kawhi gets off scot-free and now we don’t have draft picks for the next five years. While people may joke around about how we really haven’t had a first round pick in the last seven years anyways, we still had three superstars on our team. Right now we’re building from scratch with no real assets. Obviously, Ballmer has a lot of money. He can find ways to go over the apron. I think he needs to do whatever it takes to make it up to the fans because I think that’s the biggest issue with all of this. Being a Clipper fan is hard enough in LA and now it’s gotten much harder.

Question 2: The LA Clippers aggressively defended themselves throughout the year through their press releases and press conferences. What was your reaction to seeing them defending themselves so aggressively when it was clearly that was not the case.

Fan No. 1:

I think they overplayed their hand. I think that Steve Ballmer is not used to not getting his way, just in being as well off as he is, I think you become accustomed to kind of buying things to go your way, whether it’s ESPN or PR firms, whatever it is, to spew out what you need them to, but if you go back and listen to like press conferences… One that sticks to mind was when Ramona Shelburne, I think, asked Lawrence Frank a question and he wouldn’t answer it. It was like about Uncle Dennis and he just kept saying, ‘everyone knows the rules.’ Right? But he wouldn’t say. Like that really sticks out. He just kept saying everyone knows the rules. Clearly, everyone knows the rules.

*When asked if Kawhi Leonard’s Uncle Dennis ever asked for improper enfits not allowed under the salary cap, Lawrence Frank responded with, “Dennis knows the rules. Kawhi knows the rules. Mitch Frankel knows the rules, and we know the rules… Yes, we all know the rules.”

Fan No. 2:

I’m so used to just my team’s devastating me that… I mean, it’s going to sound funny or comical, but like I’m almost immune to it. My initial thought though, was man, Ballmer looks like a f-cking idiot because like he went on ESPN, made this big old plea. I mean, he just looked really bad. It made him look really, really bad. I wasn’t even thinking about how do I feel? What’s my reaction. I honestly feel like jello with all my sports teams, Clippers arguably in particular, but I immediately thought of, man, they said all this shit and they look so bad.

Fan No. 3:

It’s interesting now. Like why would you do that? Why would you spend all that time and money to defend yourself and paying for an investigation where they’re going to dig up stuff that you’ve done. I don’t know. It just seems crazy to me. I mean if it came out and they said they didn’t find anything, then cool. You spent 50 million dollars on the investigation, prove that there was nothing there, awesome. But you spent all that money, you did all that PR, you went on ESPN and did this whole plea. Then you see it come out and they posted their press release after to say you’re going to battle this in a legal court, you’re like, ‘what are you guys even doing?’ Why would you even spend that effort. It just seems like silly to me at this point. A lot of it is pride and saving face, but I mean I don’t think that it’s going to help.

Fan No. 4:

I think whenever you’re put into the media spotlight, your first reaction is always going to be to defend yourself. So I don’t mind them doing that, with Ballmer going on and doing the interview with Ramona. I get all that, but at the end of the day, it seems like they all knew. It seemed like Lawrence Frank was cooperating behind the scenes, but even recently, I think he was talking about how when all the evidence comes out, we’re still going to be innocent and we’re going to be cleared of everything. At that point, okay, you’re a liar. It’s hard to believe Lawrence Frank anyways, I think he’s very good at doing the GM bullsh-t where he just makes everything seem like it’s fine and dandy This makes me not want to trust you and that makes me not want to spend money on tickets. We got Steve Ballmer who comes in and he’s done a lot of philanthropic work, building neighborhoods around the city, which is fantastic, but at the end of the day, they’re all liars. So that’s even worse. I think there were ways for them to deliver their message without saying it, whereas, you know how they will always sort of say they don’t know about Kawhi’s injury, when they probably do. Or they don’t know if someone’s playing, but they do. I think they could have danced around it more, but they really got on the stage and were like, ‘we’re innocent and wait till you see the evidence, it’s going to prove our innocence.’ That’s where I have a problem. I think the way they went about it was the wrong way.

Question 3: As fan, do you kind of feel played by them given how it’s transpired?

Fan No. 1:

Yeah, I’m kind of annoyed. I think the fans get hit the hardest. We’re the ones paying, we’re the ones not getting a good product at the end of the day and the fact that they haven’t even addressed this, it’s crazy No email, no phone call, nothing. Jokingly in our like Clipper group chats, Gillian’s always the one that sends the email out at the end of the year, right? Not her, but her assistant or whoever it is, right? Funny enough, she’s suspended, so I guess there’s no one to be the sender. But it’s always her sending the email that says, ‘oh we’re so sorry that we missed the mark this year, blah, blah, blah. Everybody’s pretty pissed off. I mean picks are everything. Nobody cares about the the fines. I think a lot of people are more pissed at Kawhi than anything because of what it cost to get him here, what we lost to get him here, what we lost for him to leave, how he kind of just got away with murder.

Fan No. 2:

I may not be good for your interview, because literally, I’m so immune. At the end of the day, like I’m just, it’s whatever to me. This team is disappointed in me year in and year out. I think every year they’re going to win it all. Like, ‘this is the year’ and ‘who’s going to stop us in the playoffs? We’re going to be the team’ and they just disappoint. So it just goes with the territory, honestly. It doesn’t mean I’m going to stop being a fan. There’s not one second of me that’s like, am I going to change teams? Am I done with the Clippers? Absolutely not. But I’m immune. My expectations have just lowered.

Fan No. 3:

I do. But in the grand scheme of things, I’ve learned over the years that the team’s going to do what it’s going to do no matter how we feel about it. So I’m kind of numb to it. I do feel like they did steer us in the wrong direction with all of those PR moves about how they didn’t do it and how they’re fighting tooth and nail to defend themselves. And as a fan, you really want to support the team and you want to see them do good.

Fan No. 4:

Yes, because of how adamant they were about how innocent they were. I think even now, I don’t know if I speak for every fan, but the ones that I’ve talked to are like, ‘dude, you did it, just admit it and let’s move on and let’s find a way to like get past this.’ But continuing to lie just makes me not trust the entire organization and that’s a real bummer.

Question 4: Has anyone from the team reached out to you? What is it you would like to hear from them?

Fan No. 1:

Honestly, nothing. Ever since they came over to Intuit Dome, nothing ever really feels genuine with them anyways, everything’s kind of business. It’s not the way it used to be. I don’t know how to explain it. It’s just like, when my partner and I would go to the game, just the people that work there, not just in the arena, but the team staff, like we became friends with people that work for their organization and it felt like ever since they moved here, they don’t have the flexibility that they did over there to just bring you down, do this, or do that. It’s all business now.

I come to a few games throughout the year. I enjoy watching a few games, get my mind off stuff. But I don’t expect anything else. I think the only way they’re going to kind of get out of this is they’re going to have to spend more than they’re going to want to and that’s it. Like, they’ve got to pay players to be there and go over the cap and do whatever if they want to be competitive.

Fan No. 2:

I mean I honestly don’t think it matters, but I’d like an explanation. Like are you telling me that this was all done and only two or three people knew about it? Like what’s the explanation and we’re not going to get that if Steve Ballmer is really going to try to fight it, but with all this information leaking out, it sounds like and i’m going off of what your question was, but it sounds like basically Kawhi and Lawrence Frank did them in. Like Kawhi basically said, ‘yeah I did it. Let me off the hook, don’t suspend me,’ and I think Lawrence Frank did the same, like he only gave me a six month suspension. But at the end of the day, what difference does it make? If they did it, they did it. If they’re going to come out and vehemently deny it, I’m not sure anybody’s going to believe it so I’m not really sure what a statement’s going to do at this point. I think the damage is done.

If they come out and say, ‘hey we’re really sorry, these are things that should have never happened,’ does it change anything for me? Zero, so the statement means nothing to me. It’s not going to get us our picks back. It’s not going to get us Shai back. It’s not going to get us year after year of disappointment back. What is it going to do? Is it going to be like, ‘oh, thank you for admitting you were wrong.’ That doesn’t do anything for me. Maybe it does something for someone else, but it certainly doesn’t do anything for me.

Fan No. 3:

Not at all which is what bothers me as well as many other fans and season ticket holders because season ticket renewals were already done earlier this year. I know a lot of people dropped their tickets already, but they’re questioning on renewing because, for one, the team didn’t do as well as they should have last season and on top of that, the tickets are super expensive compared to the year before. The resale value is not there, but now even more so, people are wondering like why am I going to get season tickets? Seeing that the team’s going to get punished, you don’t know what the near or far future is going to be for them in terms of team-building. It’s like why are we paying all this money to go watch this team and they haven’t even addressed it to the fans. I don’t know if they feel like if they do, then it’ an admission of guilt but you kind of leave everyone high and dry. Which has kind of been the case over the years. Like every time Kawhi was hurt, they wouldn’t say anything for weeks. What team does that? I don’t think any team does that except for the clippers. And this is kind of the same feeling where this is out, it’s been out, you guys have sent press releases to the media, a statement to the league, but you haven’t addressed the fans at all and those are the most important people that keep going.

Fan No. 4:

They would reach out to me constantly, but I have not heard from anybody, recently. I haven’t even heard from my rep. My rep was all over me a couple months ago, So I’m not really sure how they’re handling it or if some other season tickets holders are being reached out to, but nobody’s reached out to me.

Question 5: How would you like to see the Clippers make this up to their fans, who are probably the biggest losers here?

Fan No. 1:

Win a championship. I think that’s the answer to everything. It’s winning. Make sure you have something competitive out there. Nobody wants to see a losing product. Well, within the rules… Or don’t get caught.

Fan No. 2:

Go make some fucking good moves and give me a winning team. Do it like legit and don’t keep giving up stuff. I mean how are they going to make it up, like what are you going to do give me a free season ticket? They’re not going to go do that. How are they going to choose which fans they give away stuff to? I don’t have a solution. I don’t have a solution that’s going to make it up to me.

Fan No. 3:

For us as season team holders, I think they need to discount the tickets or else like people aren’t going to renew and they’re not going to fill that stadium. And then the stuff Steve was doing that towards the last year at Staples Center, a lot of like fan-forward. Aside from the wall, which is like Ballmer’s baby, there’s fans that get priced out of being season ticket holders and being part of like the action and that’s what the whole basis of being a Clippers fan was! Their whole marketing when Kawhi came was, ‘Street Lights Over Spotlights,’ and being part of the team and feeling like you belong, but you’ve been taking a lot of that away.

Fan No. 4:

They’re still trying to figure out how to approach the fans, but then I think they all have to come out and apologize. Not even just that, but I think they have to earn back our trust now because anyone can issue an apology. It’s like what do you do moving forward. Do you, for a whole year or two years, do you discount tickets, do you discount merchandise, do you discount food? What are you doing as a mea culpa to the fans that have been loyal. I’d been there since the late 1980’s and I know there are dedicated longtime clipper fans that have spent a ton of money, that has spent time investing in this organization. I think there’s a lot of they’ve got to fix a lot of things man. I don’t know what the answer is because when someone lies to me, they may apologize but I still don’t trust them anymore. So I don’t know if I could trust this organization moving forward. I guess time heals everything and we’ll see what they do moving forward.

I don’t know the answer to that. I think they’ve got to figure that out and time will tell. I don’t think it’s going to be like they come up with something and then everybody feels good. I think it’s a year two three years down the line. What does this organization look like? I think it’s about actions at this point because we saw them say how innocent they were. That was a lie and they were pretty adamant about that. I think it I think they burned a lot of people in the media and isolated a lot of people in the media. I don’t think they look good with anybody, but yeah, the one that’s the ones that suffer the most are the fans.

Question 6: If you had to have a message individually or for the group of Gillian, Steve and Lawrence, what would it be?Fan No. 1: I don’t know. I really don’t know. I feel like they just have this aura about them that their sh-t don’t stink, if that makes any sense. Like they’re untouchable. I feel like it trickles down from them to —well I don’t want to name names. [There’s one guy in there] I’m pretty surprised wasn’t named in it because I think that he was a part of everything that went down. He’s literally up Ballmer’s ass 24/7. I think that he has a lot to be responsible for. But ultimately it comes down to the [top] person. Ballmer is the head of the snake right, so he has to know everything that’s going on. He can’t not know. He’s obviously involved in the team day to day, everybody knows that. So it’s just disappointing. It’s just it feels like it’s going to be really shitty until it gets better.

Fan No. 2:

Thanks for continuing to make the Clippers shit. It’s really hard for me to believe that Steve Ballmer knew what depths this was going to take and how illegal it was. But maybe I’m just too naive or too forgiving or whatever. Knowing how smart Steve is and the fact that he went on TV and made a fool of himself, like he would be lying through his teeth. It’s just really tough.

I don’t even hate Kawhi. He was my favorite player and he really screwed us. You talk about being selfish. I mean, that dude is the definition of selfish. Like, ‘oh, I’m not coming unless you give me Paul George. I don’t care if Shai’s going to be good.’ Like, ‘I’m not doing it unless you give me Paul George. Give me a max contract. You give up five picks. I don’t care if it’s cost you five picks. And oh, by the way, you better get me 30 million on the side.’ Like that is just… I mean, he’s the biggest a–hole in this whole thing. And yet he was my favorite player and I somehow still like him, even though he really screwed us.

Fan No. 3:

Just think about the fans. Beyond what’s happening afterwards, just think about you did to the fans when you guys made these decisions. I understand that maybe in their minds, they’re like, ‘okay if we win a championship, it’s not going to be a big deal.’ Just think of the fans and be true to the team and be true to your word.

Fan No. 4:

Well, I have not been a fan of Gillian for a long time and I’ve always been on the fence about Lawrence. So I’ll start with those two. It would be great if the two of them just stepped down. I think, whether Ballmer was the head of the snake, I still think they were the ones in the weeds doing it and I think there’s a point where you have to hold yourself accountable. I think they both lied and they should just remove themselves. As for Steve, he’s got to earn my trust back. There’s nothing he could say at this moment. Obviously for a year, he’s going to disappear, so I don’t know even what or how he can interact. I guess he could send a message out through the media or whatever, but he’s got he’s got to just prove it to me. Enough of the speaking. I would prefer if they said nothing and just went about their business like they’ve been with trades or draft picks or injuries. Just do good business and earn the respect back over time. I think that’s the biggest key and I think he needs to do himself a favor and really like apologize to Adam Silver, the other owners, the media people that he burned, and start mending those relationships and stop fighting. Like, enough fighting. It’s time to heal.

They they lied to us. They they made us believe them. They put out press releases Lawrence spoke you know Steve went on TV, Lawrence spoke recently within the last month saying about when everything comes to light you’re going to see we’re innocent and we stand on that and I think now even if they’re they’re being public for for a reporter it’s great right you want as much information as possible, but again are you going to get burned. They can give you whatever they want, but that doesn’t mean it’s true and then I think it burns everybody. It burns the reporters that put their job on the line and then it burns the fans who believe in it and trust in it. We’re going to invest money, hard-earned money where we live in an economy where people aren’t making a ton of money and they’re choosing to invest in a in a basketball team or a baseball team or whatever for fun. That’s what it is, a game right. It’s not that serious but it is our hard-earned money that we’re investing in the team. We want to know what’s happening, be transparent. I’d rather you be transparent and tell us hey we’re going to rebuild it’s going to take us a couple years but we’re excited and we’re going to bring in young guys and we’re going to really build this the right way I think that’s what the fans want to hear they don’t want to hear, ‘oh yeah, we’re going to be competitive! We plan to be competitive.’ We really don’t.

Question 7: What do you think his team right now assuming Kawhi Leonard is traded to the Toronto Raptors?

Fan No. 1:

I think we’ve got a lot of decent players and history shows when Tyronn Lue has a team that’s kind of underrated he performs well. That’s the hope.

Fan No. 2:

I don’t think the Clippers are dead like everyone’s saying. I mean, they’re going to get a couple picks back in this trade. I think that they’ll still be able to build a decent team in a couple of years with salary cap space, being in L.A. But it obviously was not good and it really made the whole Kawhi signing so awful.

Fan No. 3:

We have like zero positivity going into the season and it’s not because of how the team is going to perform or that you don’t want to support the team. It’s almost like the Donald Sterling situation in that you don’t want to support Sterling, but you want to support the players because it’s not their fault. Sure It’s the same thing, you know like you want to support the players because it had nothing to do with them.

Fan No. 4:

I’m not as doom and gloom as some people have made it out. I think they still have a bunch of really good players. I think they have a really good coach. I think that I’m hoping that a lot of these players will just put their head down, play basketball, and go out and prove that they’re still a good basketball team. I think you know losing draft draft picks is sucky, but they just have to be creative and we’ll see what happens.

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