Steve Ballmer got suspended by the NBA because of a podcast and a jumbotron corruption scandal
Last September, Steve Ballmer insisted in an ESPN interview that the Clippers weren’t involved in a shady-looking $28 million endorsement deal for his star player, Kawhi Leonard, that involved no actual endorsing. Now, the former Microsoft CEO has been suspended by the NBA for a year, while the league says his team will forfeit five future draft picks and pay a $30 million fine, among other penalties.
A year later, an NBA-commissioned 35-page report by Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz is basically calling him a liar, saying those claims were “inaccurate (at best) with respect to Mr. Ballmer” and “clearly false” when it came to Clippers president of business operations Gillian Zucker, who is also suspended for a year. Leonard has accepted the punishment of a $700,000 fine and a ban for his business manager.
Now the Clippers are writing angry letters to the NBA, claiming a biased investigation spurred...
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