clippertown wrote:Let’s assume that Ballmer and Kawhi are 100% guilty (something that is not yet actually proven), my question relates to how the league’s rules and the US laws interact in this situation. If the standards of proof for the NBA are less than the standards of proof in California law, wouldn’t a severe adverse decision by the league get challenged in court? I get that the league has its own rules that everybody agreed too, but if for example Ballmer was forced to sell the team (lol), this would have many cascading impacts that do not land directly on the Clippers organization. Hundreds of vendors and advertisers could sue. These cases would drag the league into a legal battle outside of their ivory castle. Ballmer would definitely appeal in court and would be pretty public about it. Since only 5% of NBA fans even know about this situation, why would the league shine a light on it now?
I get the need for punishment, but the league mostly handles these embarrassing situations behind closed doors and between the owners. A protracted legal battle between a pissed off Ballmer and the NBA would be ugly for everybody, especially if Ballmer knows where some of the other skeletons are buried. I maintain that this is not the only circumvention going on, just the only one that was outed (due to the BK of Aspiration).
Ultimately, this will likely be dealt with by banning Ballmer from his own stadium for the season, giving up a couple of useless late picks (or swaps) and issuing a hefty fine that Ballmer will pay with petty cash – likely limited to the max penalty of $7.5M. This was not technically cap-circumvention btw – it was a bribe to get Kawhi to sign with the Clippers. Even if Ballmer wanted to, he could not have paid Kawhi a penny more than he actually paid him. Any additional monies were separate to the max player contract. These are similar concepts but not identical in a court of actual law.
The lack of media and any real announcements from Silver indicate which way the league is thinking. It’s likely Silver will be travelling in a brand-new Gulfstream G800 next season, and the league will write additional rules to counter this kind of activity in the future.
1. The CBA is designed to avoid lawsuits and franchise agreements often limit what avenues are available to owners so if that is the language of the CBA, then the burden is Ballmer and likely arbitration would be mandated.
2. Any court case would land in acivil court, not criminal court. So lets say somehow Ballmer has the CBA thrown out in civil court on monopoly grounds (other owners would be on a warpath), the reasonable belief standard still applies. So is it 50+1 percent likely that Kawhi and Ballmer had an agreement? If the answer is yes the NBA prevails. Which is why OJ still had to pay a civil judgement despite not being found guilty in his criminal case for the same crime.
With the witnesses. Documented payments. Kawhi agreement with aspiration: It's hard to argue that there are not reasonable grounds for the NBA to believe Ballmer entered into an agreement with kawhi and Aspiration.
3. A lawsuit would open up Ballmer to subpoena and discovery along with the NBA. If you think he is hated now wait until he launches a lawsuit with discovery and argues the CBA should be thrown out.
4. The rest is wishful thinking, which may or may not be true. Silver can come down hard or do very little it really will likely be based on how the other owners want to react to what happened.
