Ever since news about the Kawhi Leonard-Aspiration saga made the rounds, the Los Angeles Clippers have been said to be looking at major punishment once the NBA concludes its investigation on the matter. The accusation is that the Clippers owner Steve Ballmer used a ‘no-show’ endorsement deal with Aspiration to pay Leonard an extra compensation of around $28 million via the four-year deal.
And while the expectation is that both the franchise and the player himself are looking at major punishments, Max Kellerman has argued that the Clippers should actually walk away effectively scot-free.
“He is willing to spend his money and resources in order to give his fans the best product he can. Whether he does it smartly or not, rightly or wrongly, that’s what he’s trying to do. Can I get Kawhi more money to entice him to come here? Good, if I’m a Clippers fan, good. If you’re the league, the punishment is a punishment to a solution to a thing that’s not really a problem,” Kellerman explained on the Game Over podcast.
He went on to argue that there was “no harm, no foul” simply because the Clippers “aren’t that good anyway,” suggesting that the rest of the league therefore had no reason to complain. Kellerman proceeded to suggest a monetary fine instead
“Don’t penalize the Clippers in terms of draft picks or anything like that. That’s silly, you don’t want a team to suck for five years, and believe me the Clippers will. Don’t do that. You want to punish him? Fine him. Give him an enormous fine. $100 million, $50 million fine, Ballmer will pay it. Just give him some huge fine, if the league is upset that he’s using his money to get an unfair advantage, spread his wealth around and you give it to the other teams. Make Kawhi a free agent, that’s fine,” he said.
Kellerman believes that it will be detrimental to the NBA as the Clippers will not be able to compete if actual action is taken. Instead, he suggested making Leonard a free agent, claiming that wealth redistribution may be the better solution.
Of course, while the argument makes sense considering the Clippers will undoubtedly be affected, the problems are also obvious. Not levying sufficient punishment will not only set a hugely problematic precedent, it will also completely undermine the league’s salary cap and other finance-related rules and regulations.
