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The Los Angeles Clippers were hit with massive punishments on Wednesday in relation to the investigation into the team’s alleged attempts to circumvent the salary cap to get more money to star Kawhi Leonard. It is fair to say that the NBA brought the hammer down. The Clippers’ punishment includes the loss of five first-round draft picks, a $30 million fine, and a one-year suspension for team owner Steve Ballmer. It was that last piece of the punishment that left ESPN’s Michal Wilbon of Pardon the Interruption truly stunned. “I didn’t think anything like this was going to happen, particularly to Steve Ballmer,” said Wilbon on Wednesday’s episode of PTI. “Really, nothing happened to Kawhi Leonard. $700,000 paid back, eh. Contract still going on, doesn’t miss any games. But Tony, it doesn’t matter what happens to Lawrence Frank. It doesn’t matter what happens to Kawhi, because nothing’s happening to Kawhi. Doesn’t matter what happens to Uncle Dennis. Steve Ballmer’s suspension is a big deal. That’s what I didn’t think would happen.” Wilbon was surprised that commissioner Adam Silver and the NBA at large would levy such a tough penalty against an owner who was so important to the league’s expansion plans. “Steve Ballmer is so essential to the league’s big business initiatives, and by big, I mean domestic and international expansion,” Wilbon said. “That is why largely I didn’t see the richest owner in the NBA, as you know, getting any big hit. It’s not what I thought they would find, it’s that I thought they could find anything and they wouldn’t do anything about it. So it’s a surprise to me, and it’s a big hit.” But we begin with the NBA’s punishment of the Clippers for circumventing the salary cap to get more money to Kawhi Leonard… pic.twitter.com/g6MxvbqKx4 — PTI (@PTI) September 2, 2026 Wilbon is handing something of a backhanded compliment to the NBA. He was under the assumption that Ballmer’s wealth and stature in the league was so large that even an investigation that found wrongdoing would be treated with a wag of the finger and then swept under the rug. Instead, the league has banned its richest owner for a full year, and tanked the prospects of his team contending in both the near and longterm future. Both Wilbon and his cohost Tony Kornheiser noted that they were surprised Leonard himself got off so easy in the punishment, but noted that in matters of obeying the salary cap, the teams are the ones at the whims of league rules. This entire ordeal began with a report from Pablo Torre Finds Out from nearly a year ago that first brought the under-the-table deals for Kawhi to the attention of sports fans. An investigation was announced by the league shortly after Torre’s reporting, and Torre continued to break news on the subject through the year and into this summer. With the upcoming NBA season closing in and questions regarding when the investigation might be concluded mounting, a story bylined by several ESPN insiders published just two weeks ago cited sources to report that “The NBA has found no evidence showing LA Clippers owner Steve Ballmer funneled money through team sponsors to pay Kawhi Leonard in order to circumvent the salary cap.” ESPN’s report gave critics of Torre a piece of ammo they quickly put to work, demanding he retract the story, among other things. Torre stood by his reporting, which by then had won a Pulitzer Prize, and on Wednesday, took a victory lap as praise and apologies rolled in. In a statement, the Clippers said they “vehemently reject” the findings of the NBA’s “heavily biased investigation seeking to justify a predetermined narrative,” and said they meant to “challenge these findings and penalties through every avenue available to us.” Meanwhile, Leonard said in his own statement, “I accept full responsibility for lapses in judgment by people within my inner circle and regret the distraction this situation has caused the fans and my family.”