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The NBA Brings Down the Hammer on the Clippers — New Leaf News
4 min readSep 2, 2026
By Lawson Turner
The NBA has concluded its investigation into the Los Angeles Clippers for salary cap circumvention involving Kawhi Leonard. They have issued a punishment of stripping the franchise of first-round picks, hefty fines, and suspensions for multiple parties involved. Let’s dive into the entirety of the NBA’s ruling and how bad the Clippers got it.
NBA’s Punishment on the Clippers
The league has brought it down on the Clippers. A similar punishment was when the New York Knicks were fined $500,000 and stripped of multiple second-round picks for violating the league’s tampering rules when they signed restricted free agent Jalen Brunson. Here is the entire fallout from the NBA’s statement:
- Clippers Forfeit Five First-Round Picks (2029–2033)
- Owner Steve Ballmer Fined $30 Million & Suspended from all league and team activities for one year
- Clippers’ President of Basketball Operations, Lawrence Frank suspended for 6 months without pay
- Clippers’ President of Business Operations, Gillian Zucker…
