Locked On Lakers - Daily Podcast On The Los Angeles Lakers - The NBA Drops the Hammer on Steve Ballmer and the Clippers (and How the Lakers Dodged That Bullet)

Episode Date: September 4, 2026

There were people, very likely including Clippers owner Steve Ballmer, who didn't think Adam Silver had the stones to do it. Those people were wrong. The NBA on Wednesday dropped the hammer on the LA Clippers and owner Steve Ballmer, stripping five first round picks from the team, fining Ballmer $30 million and suspending him for a year, and handing down other suspensions to team executives. Uncle Dennis (i.e. Dennis Robertson) was banned for five years from NBA activity. Only Kawhi Leonard got off basically unpunished by the league (a $750K fine, but in the grand scheme of things that doesn't amount to much given how severe the punishement could have been). And that is by design. Because by letting Kawhi walk with a slap on the wrist, the NBA avoids any sort of arbitration process that could hold up NBA business. And if the goal is to punish the behavior and prevent it in the future, the best way to do it is to punish the teams, not the players. So what now? Where do the Clips, and the league, go from here? And how could this have been the Lakers, had they chosen a different path?  HOSTS: Andy and Brian Kamenetzky SEGMENT 1: The NBA drops the hammer.  SEGMENT 2: Why was the punishment so severe (for Ballmer, not Kawhi).  SEGMENT 3: Good on the Lakers for not being the team at the wrong end of this.  PHOTO CREDIT: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!IndeedListeners of this show get a $75 Sponsored Job Credit to help give your job the premium placement it deserves at http://Indeed.com/podcast. SquareGet up to $200 off Square hardware when you sign up at https://square.com/go/NBA ! #squarepod FanDuelCollege football Saturdays are already packed with reasons to get excited, and this season, FanDuel is giving fans even more ways to get in on every matchup. Join all the action at https://FANDUEL.COM  FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN)  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The NBA drops a hammer on the clippers. And meanwhile, could that have been the Lakers? That's next. You are Locked-on Lakers. Your daily Los Angeles Lakers podcast, part of the Locked-on Podcast Network. Your team every day. Thanks to everybody for stopping by Locked on Lakers, Brian Komenetsky, Andy Kaminetsky. Oh, my goodness, Andy, and earthquake across the NBA yesterday evening,

as the NBA dropped the hammer on the Los Angeles Clippers. Not so much Coah Leonard, but definitely the Los Angeles Clippers. Those two things are related. So we're going to break that down. We'll also talk about how, you know, I'm not so sure I would say it's close enough to be Earth 2, but maybe Earth 3 or Earth 4. It's not the Clippers we're talking about right now. It's the Lakers and some weird thing where Kauai was supposed to promote Bibigo and other Korean delicacies and never got around to it or stuff like that.

So, you know, the Lakers and Jeannie Bust did some good work there. But for starters, Andy, I'm curious your reaction just when you saw what the penalty was. This was last, sorry, I should say, Wednesday evening before we got some of the details that were released in the report. that most people saw on Thursday. Well, I mean, to begin, the penalty is really, really severe for those unaware. The Clippers are losing five consecutive first-round picks between 2029 and 233, which would be really damaging under the best of circumstances, much less if you're dealing with the worst,

because you have to throw in all the other picks that they included to get Paul George as part of essentially getting Kauai Leonard. They were a package deal. Kauai had been a free agent. Paul George was part of that trade. Shea Gilgis Alexander was also part of that trade. And I'm not going to be revisionist history about this. Everybody, and I do mean everybody at the time,

thought it was a great move for the clippers. And it started out with them looking good. But clearly, in retrospect in terms of what came from it, just in the lack of, you know, finals appearances, much less championship. All of the missed games were Kauai. All of the missed games were Paul George. All this mess and where we are now, clearly, clearly,

one of the most disastrous decisions an NBA team has made in a long time. Steve Balmer, $30 million fine, which I know it's impossible to find Steve Balmer in a way that he would feel that would also be like legal. You can't find him $25 billion. I mean, like, that's not a thing. It is important in these situations to separate how much money does Steve Ballmer have from the fact that he was fined $30 million a lot? Yeah, that is in any real world, incredibly high fine.

Plus, and this is the part that I think is really going to put Steve Balmer like on a wellness check. He is banned from anything Clippers official for a year, meaning during Clipper games, he cannot even enter the building that he Epping owns the Intuit Dome for a year. Gillian Zucker also suspended for a year. Lawrence Frank suspended just six months, really because he rolled. He did a lot of rolling. He turned over to the investigation. He apparently extremely cooperative, very forthright.

very accountable. He also turned over a lot of copious notes that he took during this process, which reminded me of that scene in the wire with Stringer Bell when he says, are you taking notes on a mother bleeping criminal conspiracy? Like, it is, it's pretty, it is very common for people to write these things down and they really, really shouldn't. Well, you know, it came in handy for him. Plus, you know, there had been, Lawrence Frank got an extension at the beginning. of when this news broke and this investigation began, which some people speculated at the time was hush money. And it turns out he gets the money, but he talked anyway.

He didn't hush. That's the best kind of money. Before we get into details here, a couple of seconds, I would say the NBA really does need to spot check Chuck the Condor every night to make sure Steve Ballmore's not inside there. Well, if Chuck the Condor after every basket is like, yeah, like squirming around, it's clearly Steve Balmer. Or if he arrives in like a private jet, it would be bomber. But anyway, so the NBA, among the things that they found the and the Wachtel, Lipton, Rosen, and Katz legal firm, I'm reading from the NBA's press release, there was a pattern of misconduct and multiple signatures. significant rules violations by the Clippers organization, a prior offender of the salary cap circumvention rules.

It's important to remember a few years ago, they were fined a quarter of a million dollars going through this Mishigas with a deal with involving D'Andre Jordan and have warned and were once, Andy, forced to complete a seminar. Well, and too, it's very similar to when you get points on your driver's license and you have to do that online driver's ed course. Yeah, well, and remember two, it's not just that. they had been fined with D'Andre Jordan, which, you know, leads now we're in a pattern of recidivism.

Uncle Dennis. Repeat offender. Uncle Dennis, shout out, uh, hi, H.I. McDonough and Raising Arizona. They had already, Uncle Dennis had already been investigated before. Kauai's uncle who also got a five-year ban from anything NBA related, which, I mean, nobody's hire that guy anyway, but his one and only client will be like 43 by then and out of the league, but whatever. But like Uncle Dennis had been investigated already for, you know, astronomical insane asks of three teams.

We're going to get into this, the Lakers, Raptors, and the Clippers. So the Clippers already knew that Uncle Dennis was on the league's. radar anyway. So like the recidivism and also frankly the arrogance on a few different levels by the clippers that will talk about this, you can see at the end it really, really pissed off the league. Yeah. I will say, I didn't know for sure what they'd be able to do. I think the NBA, We did a show about this a few weeks ago, near when the ESPN report, which is not holding up great, although there's some nuance there. But like just about the what the NBA was doing here, like how quickly they can. And the one thing I've long maintained is that this is the most hyper sensitive, hyper-aware,

professional sports league that I've ever seen. And they know what the discourse is. And the assumption was, oh, they're going to let them get away with it. Adam Silver doesn't punish anybody, this, that, and the other, and so on. My position always was that the NBA was waiting for opportunity to where they had as much clarity as they could possibly get. And they would have something as solid as possible because the one thing they didn't want to have is a protracted either appeals process or arbitration process or the

legal battle or anything that it might be. I definitely think, and the reporting seems to be, you know, bearing this out, that the NBA tried to give the Clippers an opportunity to essentially take a plea where, you know, they could have, I maybe had a little bit of a lesser offense, you know, a punishment or whatever might be, but admit some wrongdoing. And the NBA could have stood behind that and said, we're punishing them. They're taking responsibility and so on. instead

and this is a little just this is a little that Adam Silver learned a little bit at the side of David Stern all these years. What they essentially did was reach an agreement

with Kauai Leonard to get the players association to avoid any kind of appeal. Kauai releases a statement taking responsibility but not really. Responsibility-ish, responsibility-adjacent.

It was the apology equivalent of, it was the responsibility statement equivalent of, I'm sorry if my words offended anybody, like to those people who might have been, who might have been offended by my words. Kauai was fined $700,000. And that's essentially, it looks like that's 700K. Well, I don't know if it's going to be the end of it.

It should be noted. The SEC is investigating Dactronics, the scoreboard or the video board company, one of the many that was funneling money to Kauai Leonard. The SEC is investigating Dactronics, but also investigating Kauai. So from the leagues. Oh, no, no. I mean, from insofar as the NBA is. Oh, I know.

I just, it's important for people to understand. Kauai may be out of the woods with the league, but he's not entirely out of the woods yet. And I got to tell you, if I had to choose between like a $10 million fine or the SEC investigating me, I would say, who do I write this checkout to? Right. Particularly when I've made tens of millions under the table. Affirmilivikwai was found by the Wachtel Lipton firm to affirmatively initiate off-court income opportunities between Mr. Leonard, the clippers were, I should say.

You mentioned Dactronics. of the four companies that are tied to this, our aspiration, which we've heard a lot about, oh, man, just plant a tree. Boingo Wireless, which most of us know from the airport, Dactronics, and Lockton Insurance, not Lockton Insurance. It's fair. We had nothing to do with this. It should be made very clear.

It's a very big network, and they're very well maybe a show called Locked on Insurance. I don't know. No, like, nothing to do with this. Our buddy Darien over at Locked on Clippers, he's. was not funneling money to quiet. We need to make sure this is very clear. He's very upset by this one. Yes, he is.

I mean, yes, he is. Very upset. Darihan is on one right now. He is and been on one for a week or so. Anyway, but next let's talk about kind of what the league did, what it means for the conference, what it means for, you know, the, the Pacific Division going forward and how in a different world, this could have been the Lakers, all that coming up next. Block on Lakers is brought to you by Square, the system powering so many of the places we already know and love.

And whether you're running a packed game day spot, a local restaurant or a growing business, Square gives sellers the tools to run their business without making the process more complicated. Square brings payments, inventory, payroll, invoices, customer insights, and more together in one connected system. So whether you're a one location business or growing in the multiple locations, Square gives you the tools to sell, manage, and grow without needing an IT team to figure it all out. Quick checkout, easy payments, and everything moving smoothly. That's where a platform like Square can make a real difference behind the scenes. The best teams have systems in place that allow everyone to do their job without creating unnecessary complications.

Businesses are the same way. Square gives sellers one connected system to manage the moving parts, which can make a huge difference when things get busy. If you're starting a business or running one that deserves better tools, Square helps you sell, manage, and grow without slowing down. Right now, you can get up to $200 off Square hardware at square.com slash go slash NBA. That's SQA-R-E.com slash geo slash NBA.

Run your business smarter with Square. Get started today. Ultimately, Kauai kind of gets away with it, at least from a league standpoint, The trade's going to go through to Toronto. The league can sort of go about its business now. Whereas if they had picked a fight with Kauai, the players union is going to take the next step, bring it to arbitration, whatever it might be.

Players union is going to object if they really dropped the hammer. And the amount of league business that gets held up is incredibly significant. So instead, what they did was they let Kauai kind of go. and he was apparently gave up enough information in the process, took enough responsibility for these sorts of things at the very least pretended to apologize, which the clippers just refused to do. And basically said the goal here is to curb the behavior.

It's not to get justice, so to speak. It's to prevent the behavior from happening again. And the way to do that is to punish the team. And so the clippers who were not cooperative and probably could have had a different outcome, had they been more cooperative at least accepted some responsibility, similar quite frankly to what Mark Walter seems to be doing with this thing where they're like, ah, sorry about that $20 million bookkeeping error. We're going to fix that and we'll get back to you.

Like we're on it. We're working on it. I think this is what Adam Silver was hoping to do the whole time was to punish the behavior, show people that the league, in fact, does take these things seriously. Because I've long maintained any. There are certain things that the league can kind of turn a blind eye at and whatever. This ain't one of them. No.

I mean, you might find the rules stupid. You might think that these things get broken all the time. And they probably do on some low level. But this is millions and millions of dollars worth of stuff. And if the league allowed this to go unpunished, it's over in terms of the competitive balance and the reason these salary cap rules and things like that exist. David Alridge, the great NBA writer, had a piece up at the athletic, and a team exec told him, quote, either you have a severe punishment or you're giving everyone a road.

of how to do it. And it's interesting, too. Like the league was even beyond the Kauai piece of this and by a lot of reports, and I think common sense, Kauai's cooperation similar to the way Lawrence Frank, according to the investigators, was more forthright and cooperative than both Steve Balmer and Gillian Zucker makes a real difference. But the league really was up against like a deadline of, we need to figure this out. because like for the time being,

Kauai Leonard, Brandon Ingram, Grady Dick, they need to figure out what team they're playing for. And camps open at the end of the month. Like, and similar what we were talking about before.

You know, I know I had said this on a few occasions when new news about this came up and we discussed it. Like there had been a lot of reports and it felt a lot like the league and the Clippers and the PA were trying to come up with punishments

that would be suitably harsh enough without anybody trying to either arbitrate or carry this out further so everyone could go on with their lives. But the league also would not look like a joke in the process. And I cannot help but think that that report from ESPN, which was very clearly clipper-sourced and very, you know, they leaking that the league had not found, evidence of cap circumvention. And unless you are talking about just like a note and like a how to video from Steve Balmer entitled, how I circumvented the cap, like as far as like, you know, that level of

proverbial smoking gun, they clearly had a lot of stuff. But you could feel from that leaking, not just trying to control a narrative and try to box the league into a corner and, you know, refuting the stuff from Pablo Tori and just control all this. But again, like an arrogance about this that it really felt like is that the statement refuting that report from Mike Bass was as angry a statement as I could recall. I heard Pablo, you know, not surprisingly, Pablo was doing a lot of media on Thursday. One of the things he noted, and I thought the same thing. The NBA very rarely speaks publicly like that with names assigned.

Mike Bass has been, for people don't know, it's been with the league and PR and that for forever. Ever. Like I certainly, I think since we've been covering the league, like I don't remember. I think he was under Brian McIntyre when we entered the league, but he's been part of Yeah, forever. And they are notorious, like mostly. It's very tight with statements. This was a very forceful response to the ESPN article.

And it felt to me, like, especially seeing where we are now, but them very much feeling like, okay, we have been trying to negotiate this in good faith in ways that, quite frankly, are more generous than you deserve. Like, you don't actually deserve. this level of, you know, cooperation that we are trying to give you. And we're trying to, in a lot of ways, give you the easier way out. But if you're going to go about this in a way that is essentially humiliating us

and trying to signal that we're weak, trying to signal that this investigation is born no fruit, and basically daring us to do something, fine. Game on. It's like the way you and I have talked over the years about the NBA with tampering. Do I actually think the NBA cares about tampering? No, not at all because they love all the reports of trades and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But you can't do like magic on Jimmy Kimmel talking about going after Paul George, wink, wink, wink, and force them to do something.

Excuse me. I agree. There's like a limit. It's like I think they care, but they also understand like there is a, it is, tampering is practically a very difficult thing to enforce. Quite frankly, this kind of thing can be a very difficult thing to enforce. And you think of all the dominoes that had to fall for this to become as big of a thing as it was. But it's also, and a lot of the bits of the report that I have seen and stuff like that are,

a lot of it comes from the companies themselves, talking among the communications among the companies in this, like talking about the things that they're doing. And the NBA kind of put enough of these dots together. and like the clippers are saying that's not what these things mean it's not real evidence and blah blah blah blah I mean look at the very least it it amounts to um just a shocking level on the part of Balmer of sort of lack of you know in the in the NCAAs you know in like the old SMU death penalty days they used to refer to these things as lack of institutional control and that's what it is in and certainly Gillian Zucker uh looks like she's deeply in

involved in all these things. And Uncle Dennis, side note, if you are a grown up, like it doesn't appear to have a lot of children or like that we associate them with and you're called Uncle anyone, you are either a really great guy or a really shady guy. There's not a lot of middle ground in there. I just like the NBA clearly had enough stuff. I wonder if the Clippers realized how much they might have had. And even if they didn't have like you say, the, you know, how I did it, Steve Balmer, you know, novel. If I had done it. If I had done it, this is how I did it.

Like they had enough. And I think either they, it's one of two things. Either they were daring the NBA to and trying to, well, especially knowing that box them into a bad spot and knowing the NBA was up against a deadline. Like knowing the NBA had to, I mean, because the report said, There may be more coming out. Yeah.

Like the law. Something had to happen between now. Right. So and I think. Right. And I think Balmer and them figured, okay, they are up against it as it is. We can maybe just push them a little bit further, try to gain a Seinfeld would say hand in this negotiation. And I think that backfired massively.

Yeah. The other, the other option is that they knew it was going to be really bad and try to get out ahead and control the narrative. But if that is the case, that also was ineffective. There was no way that the clippers were going to come out looking like they were being victimized by the league here. Just there's just no way. The last thing I would say before we go to the break is just I do not think it is a coincidence that this punishment was levied like an hour after the news of the SEC investigation broke. because that in and of itself gives the league a tremendous amount of leeway to do whatever they want in this. Yeah.

It's it's it is a bad look to say the least to the clippers and is going to, I don't want to say it's going to bury them because, you know, there are plenty of teams that operate without first round picks. They're going to get first round picks. Let's get into that. In the Kauai trade and all that kind of stuff. But it has a significant impact, which we'll talk. about next. Locked-on Lakers is brought to you by Indeed when workplace chaos hits and you need the right hire indeed sponsored jobs helps connect employers with candidates who match specific needs

like skills certifications and location. So less time spent searching and more time is spent finding the right fit. People are finding quality hires on Indeed right now. In the minute, I'll be talking to you. Companies like yours have made 27 hires on Indeed, according to Indeed data worldwide. One great addition can have a ripple effect on everyone around them. And when you find someone who brings the right skills attitude and experience, it makes the entire group better. And that's why finding qualified candidates matter so much and why tools like Indeed, sponsored jobs can help make the process better.

Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes, less stress, less time, more results. When you need the right person to cut through the chaos, this is a job for Indeed, sponsored jobs. And listeners of this show get a $75-sponsored job credit to help get your job, the premium status it deserves at indeed.com slash podcast. Just go to indeed.com slash podcast right now. Support our show by saying you heard about indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply need to hire. This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs.

It's interesting, Andy. There's a conversation going on on the live chat. Of course, you can subscribe to Lockdown Liquors on YouTube and join the show as we are often live, a generally around 9.30 Pacific time on the nights where we do go live. Of course, when the season starts, we go live about 25 minutes, half hour after the game ends. It is, there's a lively chat going on about like whether or not Balmer is going to sue. And he is at least threatening to do that. He released a long, uh, letter that, um, whiny as bleep this.

It was, I did a word count. It's 855 words. you and I used to write for ESPN.com and like the athletic and these other places, we sometimes filed pieces that were less than 855 word. And it's just it's long and it's whiny and it's all these things, but it threatens legal action. And people are noting that like, Bomber could sue. He might even sue and win.

I don't know. But like I actually, I'm not 100% sure he'll sue because that opens up questions of discovery and all these other things that may or may not be advantageous to the clippers. Balmer's also got plenty of money. So if he decides he's that hacked off, then he can do it. But what this, you know, and he can drag the league into court and he can make it ugly and you do a, what he can't do though is have some sort of league sanctioned, coordinated, agreed upon whether you want to, whether it's an arbitration or whatever

might be that stops league business. That's the part for the lake, I mean, because if you go back to the Lakers for the league, I should say, go back to the Minnesota thing with Joe Smith quarter century ago. Minnesota eventually got a couple picks back. They kind

of tweaked the deal for good behavior and all and kind of later on in the process. All of that could still happen, but the league... Not at B.Sews. I can promise you this. No, I didn't say that. But my point is that what the league can't, what the league didn't and cannot have is a thing that freezes things where they are where like nobody knows what team they play for.

And all, you know, can the clippers make trades? Can they not make trades? What's going on here? Like, you know, what's their salary cap situation? How does this? Like, they can't have that. And so Balmer can sue. I'm sure the Lee's expecting that he might.

And I'm sure they have contingencies based on that. One thing that is really. He is smart really quick. He won't. He will just, he will just eat it. Take his medicine, eat it. Because also, too, the longer he sues, the more he also drags his franchise through this muck and ugliness and just keeps reminding everybody what they did. And they were caught pretty close to red-handed doing, like from the beginning.

I remember when this news first broke and you and I were talking about it. and the thing that I've said made it look pretty damn obvious when we knew it was just one company, much less four, is you couldn't explain any of this. There was no logical. They still haven't tried. There's no even, other than we all we did was introduce people, but it's an awful lot of But even then that's been exposed as a lie. And none of this setup made even sort of logical sense.

It does. If he's smart, he will just shut the hell up, take his medicine, and then go back. to just hopefully running the team better. And right. And because, you know, it's a bit of a, it's a tough time for the Clippers only because, like, they're, they're kind of in rebuilding mode anyway, but they're getting a little bit of, you know, they'll get a couple picks in this Kauai deal. They'll figure out like, it's going to suck, but, you know, they still have the means.

They still live, you know, are in L.A. They still, you know, they're allowed to be competitive. It's not like they can't sign free agents for three years or something like that. And there are a lot. It's going to be really hard. Don't get me wrong. Really hard. When you don't have first round picks, you can't, and the ones they are getting in this

drill, they can't trade because steepy and rules, it's going to be really hard. But over time, this is where they really should focus their energy is, over time, you can develop a plan and you can start to execute. There are a lot of teams who have to maneuver without access to first round picks. We talk about one of them on a daily basis. like there's just it is this is how it works so okay um they're going to be in a tough spot though and this could say you know Minnesota granted they were not a well run organization at that time but Minnesota um went like through the wilderness for like 15 years but I want to mention

this is important this could have been maybe not again on earth two or earth three but there's earth somewhere where the Lakers are at the wrong end of this because they are desperate enough, whatever the right thing is to get Kauai on board. There was plenty of reporting at the time that Uncle Dennis was making similar requests of the Lakers and of the Raptors when it was time for Kauai to pick a team last time. And the Lakers and Raptors said no. But the Lakers had said, okay, they're the ones who are. in this pickle.

I mean, it's funny, actually, at the time during that 2019 off-season, when, you know, there was a lot of, there was a lot of reporting that Kauai was interested in the Lakers and that, you know, the decision was coming down to either the Lakers, the Clippers, or the Raptors, and then there started to be some reporting that if the Clippers would not trade for Paul George and as it turns out do a whole hell of a lot more

that he was just going to go back to Toronto but the Lakers had always been looming as this threat at least in terms of reports and people really wanted to bother and go back in time you could find this. I said at the time I never believed that Kauai was interested in the Lakers and that he was using

the Lakers as leverage team simply because I could not think of a player like a superstar in the league who would enjoy being a Laker less than Kauai Leonard and that spotlight and that scrutiny that, oh my God, if that had gone on with what we know now as a Laker, but as it turns out, really the reason he may not have ended up a Laker had nothing to do with spotlight. By the way, streetlights versus spotlights. That is hilarious now. That is really, really hilarious now.

Like for those who don't remember, after the Clippers got Kauai and Paul George, they started doing this promotional campaign very much aimed at the Lakers. And one of their sayings was streetlights, not spotlights. In other words, the Clippers were like this gritty, hardworking team while the Lakers had all their Hollywood and spotlight and celebrity. And we're just, you know, the grassroots team, you know, ignoring at the time, we. even knew at the time, you guys just landed two of the premier free agents in the league using money and location. One of them should have been doing at least a little bit of landscaping work. And also legitimately hard work.

It was built, you know, built not bought, which all of this stuff now in, I mean, it was stupid at the time. It was cringy then. But oh my God now. But as it turns out, Kauai's biggest objection to joining the Lakers may really have just been they're not willing to do all of these shenanigans. And I will say that for all of the issues I've had over the years with Jeannie as the ultimate shock caller of this organization, and I have said before, I don't think she always knowingly acts in the best interest of the business. franchise. She may tell herself that she does, but I simply do not believe it. That being said, though, this is the part that I do think is true about Jeannie and always has been. I think is

pretty consistent with her family. They do care about the league. They do care about being good stewards of the league. And I think something like this, beyond the whole, if we get caught, we are Fed factor. I think something like this would genuinely strike Jeannie as disqual. tasteful and just I'm not doing that. 100% agree. And I think the Lakers and Jeannie led by Jeannie and that, you know, whether it was, I don't know how, I don't even know like if that, if these requests got all the way up the flagpole like, hey, you know, Rob's like this is what we're being asked.

No, apparently Jeannie was aware. I'm just saying, but like, you know, but like it could have been, you know, next even before that. Like, you know, and, you know, she's aware of like, this is one of. of the reasons that we're turning it down, whatever it might be, or why it's not working out, or one lines were, led by a genie bus, the Lakers management refused to get involved in this sort of thing. And they deserve credit for that. I do think, though, that it's reflective of a certain, this is where that sort of family ownership, mom and pop, been around the league for a long time,

respect to the, you know, this is where that plays in. Because part of the reason I think Steve Ballmer is in the situation in which he finds himself is because there is a sort of arrogance that comes along with being that rich and being that powerful and having that much ability to generally speaking. And I don't even think Balmer is necessarily a bad person based on what I know about it, which is limited, to be fair. But in these sorts of situations where these guys are often hypercompetitive,

And Balmer has shown himself to be somebody who, you know, he built an arena. He's like that operates, I believe, at a loss. Like, and he doesn't care. Like all of these things don't matter because he's trying to win or whatever. And but there's an arrogance that goes with sort of being able to the perception of I can do what I want. And when I need to, if I need to, bully people into, you know, making sure I don't get punished for it. He, man, Steve Balmer tried shenanigans like this with, I believe, his son's high school team.

Like shenanigans like these. Like, again, there's a hyper competitiveness. Like, you don't end up a billionaire without being hyper competitive, just competing against other billionaires, competing against other titans of industry and corporations and other people's bank accounts. So it is fully believable that he would be competitive as a team owner. And I do think he very, I mean, too much has wanted the Clippers to be a successful organization.

But there is, as you said, just this complete disregard for rules. And just the idea, you know, it's one thing to walk up to the line of what is allowable. And by the way, people should know like this. I franchises for decades. have walked up to the line. Of course. Including the anchors. Anybody believes that this sort of thing doesn't happen either on a smaller scale or like, yes.

You know, where it's like technically speaking, it's not a violation, but it might as well be a violation. And we're like if Kauai had planted a few trees, it still would have, I think, violated the rules, but at least Kauai is doing something for the, they're like, it's, you know, it's a version of what you were talking about. Like don't make us, don't make it so obvious that we have to do something. The last thing I would say on this, just that the ultimate irony and you can always find the weak spots with even these billionaires is as much as Steve Balmer clearly was willing

to flaunt his wealth and his influence and his power and was projecting, if nothing else, a fearlessness towards the league and a fearlessness towards out. I'm silver. You know who he was afraid of? Kawhi. Just telling Kauai, no, we're not doing that. Good luck finding a team that actually will do that because they were the only one. So if he had just had the Kohonis with all of his billions to say, are you out of your effing mind? We're not doing that. Like, no, that's insane. For all of his, again, for all of that large yes, he was afraid of Kauai. He's afraid of telling that guy no. I am and afraid to look like he lost out on somebody, potentially.

I am glad the league did what it did. I think this is a good day for the NBA. It's a bad day for the Clippers, bad day for Clippers fans, but it's a good day for the NBA. Yes, it is. Because if this hadn't happened the way it did, you know, there would be a fundamental change in how the competitive balance of the league operates.

And maybe, you know, there may be a need to do that anyway. But it needs to be done in a way that's a lot less shady than just everybody sort of turns a blind eye to, you know, off court and, you know, fake endorsements. So good for the league, good for Adam Silver. And shame on the clippers for what appears to be the situation where sort of institutional arrogance was their undoing. Lockdown Lakers on YouTube is where you can hang out with nearly 40,000 subscribers to the channel. Please make sure you're subscribing to the audio product as well. If news breaks over the weekend, of course, we'll be here to try to break it down.

Otherwise, I'm assuming we'll see everyone on Tuesday after the holiday. Yes, probably, maybe, Monday, Tuesday, but definitely not Saturday and Sunday. Everyone have a great weekend.