FarBeyondDriven wrote:the conspiracy theorist in me thinks Ballmer is happily being used to help the NBA conduct its business. He drastically overpays for the franchise thus driving franchise values up. He makes moronic moves sending draft picks to other franchises for washes stars who he then overpays which makes agents and the NBAPA happy. He builds an arena for a team without a fanbase all privately funded. He ensures they're a joke so they won't ever compete with the Lakers who are the league's golden child. Nothing the man has done since becoming owner makes sense and it all points to him being a company man happy to play his role as long as he is part of an exclusive club. For doing his part, eventually they'll throw him a bone and the Clippers will win the NBA lottery in a loaded draft landing a true superstar, after he's completed his humiliation ritual.
And what exactly would be the point of that? The Lakers were horrible for years after Kobe´s injury and before Lebron´s arrival and it had 0 impact on their popularity. Same as for the Knicks sucking for more than a decade. The Nets moving to Brooklyn and building 2 "superteams" since then had 0 impact on the popularity of the Knicks.
If the league would have been afraid of that, they could have just relocated the Clippers when they took the team away from Sterling. For example to Seattle, where Ballmer is living since his Microsoft days. Outside of Clippers fans pretty much nobody would have cared about that relocation, most neutral fans probably feel anyhow that a 2nd LA or NY team isn´t necessary and would prefer a team like the Sonics instead.
