Shams: NBA Finally Punishes the Clippers (& Slaps Wrist of Kawhi)

[Roy H.]

I didn't think Silver had it in him.  That's the right decision.  it seems like a 100% chance that this goes to arbitration, and my guess is that the arbitrator will reduce the penalty, because they always do.

The Kawhi punishment is a bit of a joke, but ultimately it is the teams and the agents that need to play by the financial rules. Still, I wonder if there will be something in the next CBA about stuff like this.

Ya part of the reason for gong all-out with a 5 first round pick penalty is giving some wiggle room for having it reduced to say 3 first round picks after arbitration and still having it bite.

Minnesota was penalized 5 first round picks in 2000 for the Joe Smith tampering violation. I don't see why this will be reduced. In anything, Kawhi should have faced a two year ban for his part. The team and agent wouldn't have been part of these extra deals if Kawhi did not demanded it.

The Twolves had two of those picks restored, which is something an arbitrator would consider.

[ozgod]

Interesting decision to blast the Clippers from orbit while doing pretty much nothing to Kawhi.  I would have thought both would be held liable for an agreement both entered willingly.  Guess not.

Unfortunately I don't think there's an NBA rule that Kawhi violated, other than the $700k that they fined him, which was basically what the Clippers gave him in freebies (flights, hotel stays, etc) which they said was part of his compensation so they fined him for it. The burden of complying with the salary cap rules as outlined in the CBA rests with the team, so the hammer came down hard on them for facilitating these deals. Uncle Dennis was punished for "acting as an uncertified player representative to solicit illegal benefits", which the CBA prohibits. Uncle Dennis never hid the fact that he wanted under the table money for Kawhi so he got dinged for that - the NBA wants to send a message that any player agent needs to be certified by the NBPA.

Speaking of the NBPA, I'm sure they would have sued if Kawhi had had his contract torn up, and they probably would have won, because a) Kawhi is a basketball player, he signed a contract to play basketball, and tearing his contract up when there's no clear smoking gun that he was complicit would be seen as a restraint of trade;  b) Kawhi has plausible deniability by suing Uncle Dennis saying "Uncle Dennis was doing all this shady stuff and I didn't know about it" (whether the documents and paper trail bore this out I do not know but according to Shams they were unable to find evidence that he knew about Uncle Dennis's scams); and c) because as mentioned before, the team bears the legal responsibility for compliance. In fact, if Uncle Dennis and Kawhi had approached all the sponsors on their own and gotten $$$ out of that the team would probably have been in the clear, and Uncle Dennis would have been the fall guy. So it would have been a tough sell legally to tear up Kawhi's contract, so they chose Uncle Dennis as the scapegoat on the player side of the ledger.

Personally I'm sure Kawhi must have known at some level, but being able to prove culpability, to the point where you can win that legal battle in court vs the NBPA, would be another story. Easier all round to punish the Clippers, since their culpability was clear and documented, and Uncle Dennis, for the same reason, and more politically acceptable to the league. Let's be honest, they want Kawhi on the court, not on the sidelines. But it's a warning to everyone else to get their act together, because I'm sure there's plenty of shady deals going on all around the league.

And yes, to someone else's point earlier, the return on investment for Kawhi - the investment being over $200m in salary, $30m in fines, suspension of your owner and leadership for a year, and ultimately 10 draft picks, for a guy who played less than half the game and didn't deliver any championships - is without a doubt now the worst in the history of the league 

[Birdman]

Kawhi should got suspended. A 700K fine is nothing to him as he made over 300 million. He got off easy