The Clippers may have surrendered to the NBA hoping to get draft picks back

On Sunday night, Los Angeles Clippers governor Steve Ballmer conceded defeat… sort of.

Eleven days prior, the law firm of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz published the summary report of its investigation into the Clippers' alleged salary-cap circumvention involving star forward Kawhi Leonard. The investigation discovered evidence of the Clippers "initiating off-court income opportunities" between Leonard and four companies doing business with the team, "facilitating endorsement agreements" between those companies and Leonard, and "inducing the companies to enter into these agreements by offering them business from the team." Suffice it to say, all of the above is a blatant violation of the league's collective bargaining agreement.

As a result of the investigation, NBA commissioner Adam Silver stripped the Clippers of five first-round picks, fined them $30 million and handed out year-long suspensions to Ballmer and Clippers president of business operations Gillian Zucker, along with a six-month suspension to Clippers president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank. (Zucker should thank her lucky stars that the CBA limits Silver to no more than a one-year suspension, if we're being honest.) But when those penalties first came down, the Clippers emphatically pushed back on them.

At first, they released a statement saying they "vehemently reject" the NBA's findings, which they claimed were "the result of a heavily biased investigation seeking to justify a predetermined narrative rather than facts and evidence."

Later that night, a lawyer affiliated with the Clippers sent a letter to Silver which said they were "exploring every legal remedy to address this gross injustice" after Silver pulled an end-around on the Clippers that took arbitration off the table for them.

So, why the sudden about-face less than two weeks later from Ballmer? He might be looking at the Joe Smith precedent as a potential salve to his otherwise decimated team.

The Joe Smith precedent

In 2000, then-commissioner David Stern issued a similar punishment to the Minnesota Timberwolves after discovering a series of one-year contracts with Joe Smith that were intended to circumvent the salary cap. Like Silver, he also stripped the T-Wolves of five first-round picks, levied a hefty fine and issued a one-year suspension to then-team owner Glen Taylor.

Stern initially stripped the Wolves of their 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005 first-round picks due to the "fraud of major proportions" involving "no fewer than five undisclosed contracts." However, the NBA later gave the Wolves their 2003 and 2005 first-round picks back.

They received the former back within a few months of the initial ruling in exchange for Taylor and team vice president Kevin McHale agreeing to accept the punishment and not pursue arbitration. One year later, Stern gave them their 2005 pick back "in light of the other penalties that have been imposed on the Timberwolves, and the team's conduct since the Smith matter concluded."

Arbitration is already off the table for the Clippers. Silver got the National Basketball Players Association to sign off on the punishment, which made it final. Had the Clippers followed through with their threat to sue the NBA, Silver likely wouldn't have been as charitable as his predecessor in terms of eventually reducing their punishment.

Ballmer and the Clippers might be taking their medicine now to avoid further penalties being handed down. As the NBA made clear , "Wachtell Lipton continues to receive information relevant to the investigation, and the league will consider further action as appropriate."

Ballmer did apologize to fans, employees and fellow team owners "for the distraction and distress this matter has caused, for which I accept responsibility as principal owner." However, he did not explicitly take the blame for the circumvention scandal. In fact, he said that "there are still disagreements concerning the findings in the report" before adding, "this is not where I want to focus. Team owners should support, not distract."

Pablo Torre, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his comprehensive reporting on this scandal, was quick to point out what Ballmer didn't say in his statement and why. The TL;DR version: The NBA and the Clippers may be the least of his problems right now when it comes to his alleged role in the circumvention scheme.

That puts Ballmer in a tricky spot. If he does eventually accept full responsibility, he might be opening himself up to additional legal action. But as John Hollinger of The Athletic noted Monday, "without a real admission of guilt, I'd put the probability of a reduced penalty for the Clippers at roughly 0.0000001%."

So, just because the Timberwolves eventually got two of their five stripped first-round picks back in the Smith circumvention scandal, it doesn't mean the Clippers are guaranteed to get two of theirs back as well. But dropping any legal proceedings against the league and begrudgingly (sort of) accepting the NBA's ruling was the first step toward any hope of a reduced penalty.

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