“My powers are very broad. I have a full range of financial penalties, drat picks, suspensions, et cetera. I have very broad powers in these situations,” said Adam Silver, when discussing the punishments that await Kawhi Leonard and Steve Ballmer if any evidence against them is found in the league’s investigation. It’s been quite some days now since Pablo Torre alleged that Leonard and his employers created a ‘fool-proof’ system to secure the player an additional $28 million in funding through a company named ‘Aspiration’, which Ballmer had invested $50 million in back in 2021. With reports revealing that the NBA will launch an investigation, speculation has risen on what punishment the Clippers star will get.

NBA reporters Adam Kaufman, Keith Smith, and Evan Valenti recently hosted another episode of the ‘CLNS Celtics Beat’ podcast. During the same time, Smith discussed the Kawhi Leonard controversy by bringing up the example of the Joe Smith controversy. This occurred back in 1999, when Minnesota and Smith signed a secret and reportedly illegal deal where they would give him an $86 million contract after they acquired his Bird rights. After the scheme was exposed in 2000, then-NBA Commissioner David Stern voided Smith’s big contract, fined the Timberwolves $3.5 million, suspended owner Glen Taylor, forced GM Kevin McHale to go on leave, and forced the Timberwolves to forfeit five first-round picks.

For Keith Smith, a similar punishment awaits the LA Clippers and Kawhi Leonard if the allegations placed against the latter prove to be true.

“There are some things laid out in the CBA, and one of the things is a $4.5 million fine, uh, voiding of contracts” said Smith. “Uh, there can be suspensions that are handed down as well as loss of draft picks. But again, every contract, and this goes beyond sports, almost every contract has a for the good. Especially in sports, usually, for the good of the game clauses, um, that get put in where it is, ‘hey, somebody did something really bad that we didn’t anticipate, and we know it’s bad for the game. So, we’re going to give the commissioner again as an agent of the owners to do what they need to do’. So, I think they are really kind of going to going to go after this hard and I think we will see some form of suspensions.”

When discussing the potential scenario of the former Microsoft CEO being forced to get rid of his franchise, Smith added, “I don’t know that they’re going to force Steve Ballmer to sell the team. That would get into a whole other type of legal fight. Um, but I think we’re going to see suspensions. I think we will see lots of draft picks.”

Smith claimed that the punishment could be in the form of suspended draft picks, claiming that the NBA does not have any rule restricting them from going too far into the future. Smith suggested that the league, if Adam Silver wants, can simply go beyond the next seven years or 2030, when the Clippers will actually have draft picks that the league can ask them to surrender.

As Adam Silver revealed in his recent statements, he plans to let the NBA investigation into the alleged salary-cap circumvention play out instead of choosing to hand out an immediate punishment. Pablo Torre’s reporting has revealed a paper trail that gives Adam Silver reason enough to act based on circumstantial evidence. After all, as ESPN Insider Bobby Marks highlighted, one “can find a lot of teams who have maybe violated the salary cap based on circumstantial evidence with it with regards to the Clippers here.”

As The Athletic’s Sam Amick highlighted, Silver had stated ‘six summers ago’ that salary cap circumvention is “a cardinal sin.” By Wednesday, he had highlighted his ‘broad powers’ to levy fines, suspend personnel, and strip away draft picks. For now, however, he is letting the investigation run its course.

Until more information is revealed, it is hard to predict the severity of the Kawhi Leonard controversy, and the punishment that could follow it. However, if Mark Cuban is to be believed, then things at least won’t look pretty for Steve Ballmer.

Mark Cuban Believes Steve Ballmer Will Be “Over” If Kawhi Leonard Controversy Is Proven

The former Dallas Mavericks majority owner appeared on ‘Pablo Torre Finds Out’ about a week ago. When discussing the controversy, he defended the LA Clippers team owner by saying that Ballmer is not ‘stupid’ to make an illegal move while leaving a clear paper trail that leads back to him. For Mark Cuban, Steve Ballmer has a lot to lose. That being said, the ‘Shark Tank’ star did not completely dismiss accepting any unfortunate findings in the investigative report.

“If your reporting is right, and Steve knew, then it’s over. He’s toast. It’s far worse than Joe Smith,” said Cuban.

Even though Mark Cuban defended him, people still raised questions since ‘Aspiration’, the company Steve Ballmer provided $50 million to at its initial stage, paid Kawhi Leonard $21 million, and owed him $7 million more, through the player’s company, KL2 Aspire, LLC. In exchange, the player had to do nothing except stay with the team, since a clause in the contract stated that the agreement would be terminated if Leonard left the Clippers or retired. The $28 million deal was reportedly made without consulting a high-powered executive within ‘Aspiration’. Founder Andrei Cherny never even reportedly presented the deal to Aspiration’s Board of Directors. Even an anonymous former ‘Aspiration’ employee later spoke on Torre’s podcast, using a voice disguiser, and claimed that the deal was made to “circumvent the salary cap”, thereby pushing Ballmer into the controversy.

While things might get bad for Kawhi Leonard, they will especially get worse for Steve Ballmer. Now, it remains to be seen what the NBA finds in its investigation, and whether the situation really does get worse than Joe Smith.