{"id":2126140,"date":"2026-09-03T12:00:59","date_gmt":"2026-09-03T09:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2126140"},"modified":"2026-09-03T12:00:59","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T09:00:59","slug":"the-clippers-are-busted-inside-the-wachtell-report-and-the-penalties-adam-silver-chose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2126140","title":{"rendered":"The Clippers are busted: Inside the Wachtell report and the penalties Adam Silver chose"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Caught. Nabbed. Busted.<\/p>\n

The LA Clippers spent the last year insisting they had nothing to fear from an NBA investigation into cap circumvention and that everything would be fine.<\/p>\n

Narrator voice: Everything was not fine. A half-decade-old scheme to funnel extra money to Kawhi Leonard has come to light, with the help of an investigative report from the \u201cPablo Torre Finds Out\u201d podcast, and the Clippers are screwed<\/em>.<\/p>\n

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Advertisement<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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First, the basics. After a yearlong investigation that culminated in a 35-page summary report from the law firm of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, the league brought down the hammer<\/a> on the Clippers on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

For what it deemed were four separate instances of violating the league\u2019s collective bargaining agreement by engaging in cap circumvention to fill the pockets of star forward Kawhi Leonard from 2020 to 2022, the league stripped the Clippers of five first-round picks, fined the team $30 million, suspended owner Steve Ballmer and president of business operations Gillian Zucker for a full year and suspended president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank for six months. Leonard was also required to pay the league $700,000 in unreimbursed expenses, and his agent at the time, Dennis Robertson (aka \u201cUncle Dennis\u201d), was banned from the NBA five years.<\/p>\n

The Clippers, for their part, have stuck to their story<\/a> and vowed to keep fighting, but it is not clear how. There is no appeals process for this, and courts generally give leagues wide latitude to enforce their own rules.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, the information in the Wachtell report is damning, and the Clippers\u2019 only attempt at a factual refutation has been to call it a \u201cwitch hunt.\u201d Also, it was common knowledge through the league that Uncle Dennis was asking for preposterous and blatantly illegal side benefits<\/a> in the summer of 2019, which Leonard then began receiving in 2020 ahead of his next free agency, according to the report.<\/p>\n

To say the burden of proof is now on the Clippers would be a massive understatement.<\/p>\n

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The Kawhi Saga: What the NBA’s investigation into the Clippers revealed<\/div>\n
Mike Vorkunov and Jeshua Kidd<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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