The Clippers Just Got Themselves Into a Five-Year Rut

The Los Angeles Clippers have accepted their fate as a bottom tier sports franchise.

At first, the Kawhi Leonard thing didn’t feel like a big deal. Salary cap circumvention? What’s that? Pablo Torre’s reporting was incredible, but for a brief moment, it felt like the gravity of the situation was overlooked by the common hoops fan.

The investigation dragged on and on. It was one of the weirdest pieces of the offseason, as the Leonard trade back to the Toronto Raptors was in limbo because of the league’s investigation. Leonard got off the hook with a slap on the wrist, just a $700,000 fine.

The Clippers did not get off the hook.

The NBA dropped the hammer on the Clippers and owner Steve Ballmer. They lost five future first-round draft picks and the organization was fined $30 million. Ballmer and executive Gillian Zucker were suspended for one year, and president Lawrence Frank was suspended for six months. On Sunday night, ESPN’s Shams Charanis reported that Ballmer is complying with the league’s punishment.

In a league that’s had plenty of scandal, the NBA dropped their most significant punishment ever on the Clippers. As it turns out, you can’t sidestep the NBA salary cap by paying a superstar under the table cash through fake brands. Maybe other teams are doing it. Torre has suggested that it could be a possibility. If they are, they’d be really dumb if they continued.

Because the Clippers are royally screwed.

Sometimes in life, you know you’re getting the short end of the stick. There’s nothing worse than being in a rut.

But the Clippers just got themselves into a five year rut.

They aren’t a great team. They just sold Leonard, possibly because they knew a hammer punishment was being dropped as a result of this investigation. Darius Garland, Bradley Beal, Rui Hachimura and Brook Lopez will play actual NBA minutes together this season. It’s a roster coached by Tyronn Lue, whose superstar coaching status could likely dim as a result of this upcoming debacle.

The Clippers have no way to add young talent via the draft. Ballmer has money, but getting fined $30 million can’t be fun. They can play a super villain role, going well over the salary cap luxury tax and into the second apron, buying free agent superstars who would be open to signing big money deals in Los Angeles.

Or, they can accept their fate and meddle in the middle or bottom of the Western Conference. They’re an irrelevant franchise in Los Angeles. Leonard was supposed to be the thing that helped change that narrative, and he ended up being the guy that cemented it for at least another half decade.