NBA suspends Clippers owner for a year, docks team first-round draft picks in Kawhi Leonard probe

The league suspended owner Steve Ballmer and two executives Wednesday and fined the team $30 million for circumventing the salary cap.

In one of the largest basketball-related penalties ever levied against an NBA franchise in the league’s history, the NBA on Wednesday fined the Los Angeles Clippers $30 million and star Kawhi Leonard $700,000, suspended the team’s owner, Steve Ballmer, and two top executives and stripped the franchise of five first-round picks after it ruled the team had circumvented the league’s salary cap rules.

Ballmer will be suspended from all league and team activities for one year for “knowingly seeking to help Mr. Leonard obtain off-court income opportunities, for approving a business deal that he knew was a precondition for Aspiration to enter into an endorsement agreement with Mr. Leonard, and for his failure to create conditions under which his organization abided by the NBA’s circumvention rules,” the NBA ruled.

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said in a statement that he was “deeply disappointed by the flagrant violations of our rules and by the Clippers’ institutional and leadership failures that led to this misconduct.”

“The NBA’s collectively bargained system for determining player compensation is a fundamental component of the basketball competition that the league oversees for the benefit of the teams and players and ultimately the fans,” Silver added.

Steve Ballmer, who purchased the Los Angeles Clippers in 2014, will be suspended from all league and team activities for one year.Adam Pantozzi / NBAE via Getty Images fileThe Clippers “vehemently reject the NBA findings, which are the result of a heavily biased investigation seeking justify a predetermined narrative rather than facts and evidence,” the team said in a statement. “What the league told us privately differs from what it announced today publicly, and they have not held themselves close to the standard Commissioner Silver set at the start of this investigation to ensure it’s fairness and accuracy.”