By admin 
The NBA head office sent shockwaves through the basketball community after handing the L.A. Clippers a record punishment for circumventing the salary cap, and while the situation seems to be slowly fading into the rear-view mirror, there has been irreversible damage caused by Steve Ballmer and the Clippers’ brain trust.
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As the news broke that the Clippers were found guilty of violating NBA rules after a more than yearlong investigation, Ballmer and the Clippers released a statement saying they would aggressively fight the charges. Recently, however, Ballmer underwent a complete 180 in his approach and announced that he and the organization would humbly accept the ruling and move on.
The Kawhi Leonard trade was then swiftly pushed through, and, according to long-time NBA insider Brian Windhorst, despite the Clippers wanting to move on, other NBA owners are still furious with Kawhi and Ballmer over the scandal.
“Based on the conversations I was having the owners were really pissed off by this report because Ballmer was well liked amongst owners, not all of them I’m sure, but I think they the owners wanted to believe him,” he began. “I talked to a handful of them over the last year and I would always ask about it, sometimes they would bring it up to me. Sometimes they would ask me what I had heard because they were not getting briefings, but I think that there was a belief that they didn’t want Steve to be guilty of this”.
“In the report he doesn’t plead guilty, he basically says we are committing to put this chapter behind us and we have communicated to the NBA we are complying with the penalties assessed and paid the 30 million dollar fine. I think the fact that he said ‘I want to apologize to fellow and the owners’, I don’t think that should be a line we should just look past because I think there was a reason why,” Windy
Making enemies
Comparatively speaking, Ballmer is a new owner in the league. After his purchase of the Clippers, Windhorst is right that he has grown a fairly good reputation among owners in the Association. His passion for the team and the fanbase is infectious. NBA front offices can see that he cares deeply about the organization, but as they say, reputations take years to build and seconds to destroy.
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Ballmer now finds himself in a peculiar position. We know the NBA is a business, and doing business dealings with other teams following such a high-profile scandal is going to be easier said than done. When considering that he is currently suspended from day-to-day operations as part of the league punishment, repairing those relationships becomes an even taller task.
Where to from here
The Clippers organization as a whole has never been in a worse position reputationally. They currently have a dark cloud over everything they do, and it will remain there for quite some time. Unfortunately, they also won’t field a team that will challenge for a top seed or a title this upcoming season, meaning the fans have less incentive to fill the arena during the most difficult period in their history.
As far as immediate steps go, it would be in Ballmer’s best interest to move towards damage control and try to repair the severed relationships with the other owners. Some fans have called for Ballmer to sell the team following the scandal, but he’s set on fixing the mistakes he made.
Related: “It’s not the $30 million” – Tim Hardaway reveals what will hurt Steve Ballmer most about NBA suspension
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This story was originally published September 17, 2026 at 4:49 AM.