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NBA hits LA Clippers with sweeping penalties and bans billionaire owner Steve Ballmer
🇩🇪 Germany /Sports

NBA hits LA Clippers with sweeping penalties and bans billionaire owner Steve Ballmer

From Der Spiegel · () German

Translated from German and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

News Official statement New plan
  • The NBA penalized the Los Angeles Clippers for allegedly bypassing the salary cap through sponsor payments connected to former star Kawhi Leonard.
  • The team must give up first-round picks from 2029 through 2033, while owner Steve Ballmer received a $30 million fine and a one-year suspension.
  • Clippers executives Gillian Zucker and Lawrence Frank also received suspensions, and the league will monitor the club for five years; the team rejected the findings and plans to challenge them.

The Los Angeles Clippers will lose five future first-round draft picks after the NBA ruled that the club used sponsor payments connected to Kawhi Leonard to circumvent the salary cap. The picks, covering 2029 through 2033, could make a long-term rebuild much harder.

First-round selections give NBA teams access to young players who may become stars while earning relatively modest salaries early in their careers. The Clippers will now go without that route to building their roster for years. The league will also place the team under a special monitoring program for five years.

I am deeply disappointed by the Clippers’ egregious violations of our rules and institutional leadership failures that led to this abuse.

— Adam SilverThe NBA commissioner criticized the conduct that led to the penalties.

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said he was “deeply disappointed by the Clippers’ egregious violations of our rules and institutional leadership failures that led to this abuse.” He added: “The severity of the penalties reflects the seriousness of the violations.”

The severity of the penalties reflects the seriousness of the violations.

— Adam SilverHe explained the scale of the league’s punishment.

The penalties extend beyond the draft picks. Ballmer must pay $30 million and cannot take part in basketball or team activities for one year. Clippers presidents Gillian Zucker and Lawrence Frank received suspensions of one year and six months, respectively.

The club responded angrily and rejected the league’s conclusions. “We categorically reject the NBA’s findings, which are the result of a highly biased investigation designed to justify a predetermined narrative rather than facts and evidence,” the Clippers said. “What the league communicated to us privately differs from what it announced publicly today.”

We categorically reject the NBA’s findings, which are the result of a highly biased investigation designed to justify a predetermined narrative rather than facts and evidence.

— Los Angeles ClippersThe team rejected the NBA’s findings and accused the investigation of bias.

The team said it would fight to prove its innocence and challenge the findings and penalties through every available avenue. It also said it looked forward to an ethical and impartial arbitration process.

What the league communicated to us privately differs from what it announced publicly today.

— Los Angeles ClippersThe club disputed the NBA’s public account of the case.
About this summary

Originally published by Der Spiegel in German. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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