As if it isn’t hard enough for Clippers fans to be Clippers fans…
On Wednesday, those folks had to watch their team play defense in September. Had to wrap their minds around the bombshell from podcaster/investigative reporter Pablo Torre laying out allegations that team owner Steve Ballmer might have circumvented NBA salary cap rules by funding a $28 million no-show endorsement deal for Kawhi Leonard.
Clippers fans had to remind themselves of that environmental company called Aspiration that the team was promoting a few years ago – and into which Ballmer reportedly invested $50 million, and with whom Leonard allegedly had a marketing deal that required no marketing.
Of course, the Clippers told Torre that allegations were “provably false” and added in a statement on Wednesday that “the notion that Steve invested in Aspiration in order to funnel money to Kawhi Leonard is absurd.”
Well, the NBA is going to look into that. And that basketball world is getting a laugh at the Clippers. As they tend to do.
If what’s being alleged is true, the question for me would be: All that for what?
For Kawhi Leonard? Yes, the basketball savant from Moreno Valley was the hottest commodity in 2019 free agency. He was 28 and he’d just won his second NBA title and second NBA Finals MVP.
He’d been the best player on those San Antonio Spurs and Toronto Raptors title teams, but the leader of neither. We probably should have thought harder about how he’d left San Antonio on bad terms, or that he was limping away from The North.
Because, for the Clippers, Leonard has proved the least reliable, least charismatic basketball star money could buy.
And now they’re going to be investigated for allegedly doing all that with this Aspiration company for … what? Because they wanted this uber-private, mysterious figure to be the face of their franchise?
All that for the ironic “Fun Guy” who has only turned the dial backward for the Clippers in L.A., where our stars are stars, charismatic figures who embrace the attention and show out on stage? Think Magic Johnson, Shaquille O’Neal … Blake Griffin.
All that for one Western Conference finals appearance and that’s it? One that came without Leonard, whose second-round knee injury (a torn ACL, we were finally told weeks later) broke Clippers’ fans hearts, again.
All that to be humiliated in the Orlando bubble? Remember 2020, when Kawhi’s Clippers blew a 3-1 second-round playoff series lead against the Denver Nuggets? Remember Game 7, when Leonard and his hand-picked running mate Paul George combined to shoot 0 for 11 with the season on the line in the fourth quarter?
All that and the Lakers – who were left scrambling after the Klaw left them hanging – threw together a squad of role-embracing vets who handled the bubble like pros and won the franchise its 17th title, a swift and stinging rebuttal.
All that so the Clippers could say that the Veruca Salt of free agents picked them, but only after they met his demands to not only move heaven and earth but also future league MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, five first-round draft picks and two pick swaps to procure PG to play alongside?
All that, perhaps, to turn the reigning champion Oklahoma City Thunder into a potentially dynastic force that could terrorize the NBA for years with its young roster built in part on the Clippers’ contributions? All while leaving the Clippers’ own cupboards low on valuable draft stock?
All that to get just 37 games out of an ever-carefully-ramping-up Leonard last season when the Intuit Dome debuted – to rave reviews but slow-arriving crowds that didn’t start showing up in earnest until the postseason was nigh, the Clippers on their way to a first-round flameout?
The Clippers have already lost their big bet on Kawhi – but it was one that reasonable people agreed with them making, at least until Torre’s reporting alleged wagers we might not have known about.
And what if, now, disappointment turns into disaster?
What if the NBA were to find the Clippers did, in fact, violate one of the league’s cardinal sins by circumventing the salary cap? What if the league decides to respond like it did in 2000, when Commissioner David Stern found the Minnesota Timberwolves guilty of doing so and, among other measures, stripped them of five future first-round picks, suspended then-owner Glen Taylor and top front office executive Kevin McHale for a year and also rescinded Joe Smith’s years accrued as a member of the team.
Well, that would be “absurd” is the Clippers’ position. And considering the fleeting moments they’ve gotten in return on their investment in Kawhi – however costly it is in the end – it’s getting hard to argue that.