So apparently Kawhi Leonard might have been pulling in an extra $28 million through a “no-show” job with a tree-planting company tied to Steve Ballmer. Yes, you read that right: the Clippers, an NBA team that has spent the last decade trying to reinvent themselves as competent, might have found themselves in a Timberwolves-style mess.
Now, this is still all in the alleged category. Pablo Torre dug up documents linking Kawhi’s LLC (KL2 Aspire, very subtle) to Aspiration, a Ballmer-funded outfit that paid him while also sponsoring the Clippers. It all smells like a work-around of the salary cap, the sort of maneuver you’d expect in Euro soccer, not under Adam Silver’s NBA microscope.
If this were 2000? If David Stern were still stomping around in his pinstripe suit, dropping hammers like he was Judge Dredd? The Clippers would already be faxed a punishment letter so brutal it would make Donald Sterling blush.
But it’s 2025. The NBA is a different league. Which is why, if you’re a Wolves fan, this feels like déjà vu with a twist.
The Joe Smith Scandal: How the Wolves Fumbled Away Their Future
Every tortured franchise has the story. The Celtics had Len Bias. The Knicks have Charles Smith’s four blown layups. The Kings have Robert Horry in 2002. For the Minnesota Timberwolves, it’s the Joe Smith scandal — a move so dumb, so shortsighted, and so unbelievably “Wolves” that it basically derailed the KG era before it could even hit its peak.
The Setup: The Wolves’ Desperation Play
Let’s rewind to the late 1990s. Kevin Garnett was becoming Kevin Garnett. By 1997–98, he was already an All-Star, a defensive freak, and a once-in-a-generation unicorn before “unicorn” became an NBA buzzword. The Wolves, for the first time in their existence, had something real.
Their problem? They were still Minnesota. Cold weather, small market, zero history, and a front office that was playing checkers while Jerry West and Gregg Popovich were playing 4D chess. They needed to lock in KG’s prime years with talent around him.
Enter Joe Smith. The former No. 1 pick who never quite lived up to his billing but was still a decent forward. The Wolves thought: If we can get Smith on the cheap, we’ll have flexibility to build around KG. Logical, right?
The “Secret Side Deal”
Here’s where it goes from standard front office maneuvering to “wait, did David Kahn ghostwrite this?”
Instead of just signing Smith for what he was worth, the Wolves cooked up one of the worst schemes in NBA history:
Smith would sign three consecutive one-year deals at way below market value.
In exchange, he’d get a handshake promise that once the Wolves had Bird rights, they’d back up the Brinks truck with a massive long-term deal.
Think about this: they basically left a paper trail saying “yeah, we’ll break the cap rules later.” That’s like writing “Don’t arrest me, officer” in the memo line of a check to Pablo Escobar.
The Fallout
Of course, the NBA found out. (Because of course they did. David Stern’s league office missed nothing.)
The punishment was nuclear:
The Wolves lost five first-round draft picks (three immediately, two later reduced on appeal).
They were fined $3.5 million.
Owner Glen Taylor and GM Kevin McHale were suspended.
This wasn’t just a slap on the wrist. This was the basketball equivalent of having your future repossessed.
The Ripple Effect
Now imagine the alternate universe where Minnesota had those draft picks. The Wolves entered the early 2000s with peak Garnett but couldn’t add cost-controlled young talent. Instead, they were forced into bad veteran contracts (hi, Marko Jarić) and “we hope this works” trades.
The result? KG put up MVP-level seasons, dragged the Wolves to the Western Conference Finals in 2004, then spent most of his prime as a one-man band surrounded by Wally Szczerbiak and a rotating cast of spare parts.
Think of it this way: The Wolves essentially handcuffed their franchise for a decade… for Joe Smith. Not Shaq. Not Duncan. Not even Chris Webber. Joe Smith! A perfectly fine player who should’ve been your fourth option, not the centerpiece of a franchise-altering cap crime.
The Legacy
The scandal has become shorthand for Wolves futility. You can’t bring up “bad NBA management” without someone dropping “remember the Joe Smith thing?” in the group chat. It’s their Zapruder film.
Even worse: it cost them the goodwill of KG. When he eventually forced his way to Boston, you could draw a straight line back to the Smith mess. Minnesota had their generational superstar, but they squandered the flexibility and trust they needed to keep him happy.
What If the Wolves Hadn’t Botched Joe Smith?
So let’s play it out. The NBA stripped Minnesota of five first-round picks (though two were later restored). That’s still three cracks at cheap, young talent in the KG era… gone.
Here’s what those missing picks could have been:
**2001 draft (Wolves pick forfeited)**Who was on the board in the mid-first? Just some guys named Zach Randolph, Gerald Wallace, and Tony Parker (who went 28th). Imagine KG playing with a young Z-Bo banging bodies inside or Parker growing up alongside him instead of in San Antonio.
**2002 draft (pick forfeited)**That was the year of Yao, Amar’e, and Caron Butler. Late in the first round? Tayshaun Prince, John Salmons. Even Carlos Boozer in the second round. Put Prince’s defense and length next to KG and suddenly those 2000s Wolves have actual wings instead of duct tape.
**2004 draft (pick forfeited)**The Wolves were drafting late in the first round coming off of their first-ever Western Conference Finals run, so nearly all of the impact players were off the board. Still Anderson Varejao’s hair would have looked fantastic in one of those black trees uniforms.
What-If…
Picture 2004, the peak Wolves season. KG wins MVP. Cassell and Sprewell are making every Wolves fan feel like this is finally happening. Now imagine if instead of Mark Madsen minutes, you’ve got Tayshaun Prince coming off the bench. Or Tony Parker in year three running backup point.
Sigh. (Why do I still do this to myself 25 years later…)
That’s the alternate timeline. A timeline where the Wolves don’t just flame out in the Western Conference Finals. A timeline where KG maybe never feels like he has to leave.
The Painful Reality
Instead, the Wolves got punished into irrelevance. They still had KG, still made the 2004 run, but the supporting cast kept drying up. The Joe Smith scandal wasn’t just about losing picks. It was about losing options. When you’re in Minnesota, options are everything.
Instead of the Garnett era turning into a perennial powerhouse, it became one shining run followed by years of frustration, and eventually a tearful KG holding up a Celtics jersey.
Why the Clippers Won’t Get Wolves’d
And here’s the rub: the Clippers probably skate. Worst case, maybe they lose a second-rounder and Ballmer passes on buying another yacht to cover the fine. The NBA isn’t taking picks from a team in Los Angeles with a brand-new arena and an owner with more money than some countries.
Meanwhile, the Wolves got obliterated because we’re Minnesota. Small market. No cachet. Easy target. Stern made an example of us, and we spent two decades paying penance for trying to be clever.
The Twist: Wolves Up, Clippers Down
But here’s the part that flips the script. The Clippers gave up Shai Gilgeous-Alexander to keep Kawhi happy. Let me repeat: they had SGA, the guy who just nabbed the League and Finals MVP awards, and they punted him for a half-decade of “is Kawhi’s knee swelling today?” Now they’re the ones juggling lawsuits and cap-circumvention whispers while their core ages in dog years.
The Wolves? We have Anthony Edwards. We have back-to-back Western Conference Finals trips. We have competent ownership and a front office that actually knows what it’s doing. We’re not praying for health or clinging to the past. We’re building the damn future.
So yeah, maybe the Clippers are replaying our Joe Smith nightmare. But the punchline is different now: they’re the ones fumbling their window, and the Wolves are the ones knocking on the Finals door.
For Wolves fans, that’s not just ironic. That’s catharsis.
0 Comments