Steve Ballmer spent 14 years as Microsoft's CEO building one of the most valuable companies on the planet. This week, the NBA suspended him from his own basketball team for a year — the centerpiece of the harshest sanctions the league has ever handed down.
The Punishment
The Los Angeles Clippers were fined $30 million, the largest fine in NBA history, and will forfeit five first-round draft picks, one every year starting in 2029. Team president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank was banned for six months. President of business operations Gillian Zucker was suspended for a full year, matching Ballmer's own suspension. Star forward Kawhi Leonard was separately ordered to pay $700,000.
What He Actually Did
The NBA's investigation found Ballmer "knowingly" helped Leonard secure off-court income opportunities worth millions — approving a business arrangement the league says he understood was a precondition for a company called Aspiration Partners to sign an endorsement deal with Leonard. That's the part that crosses from ordinary team generosity into salary-cap circumvention: using off-books deals to functionally pay a player more than the cap allows, without it ever touching his actual contract.
Leonard's own penalty is separate and smaller — the league says he violated the rules "through the conduct of his business manager," pressuring the Clippers into helping arrange that outside income, rather than orchestrating it himself.
The Clippers Aren't Backing Down
The team's response was blunt: "We vehemently reject the NBA's findings," and vowed to "challenge these findings and penalties through every avenue available to us." That sets up a real fight — a billionaire owner and his franchise against the league he plays in, over penalties that could reshape the Clippers' roster for half a decade before a single appeal is resolved.
For now, the suspension stands, the picks are gone through 2033, and one of the wealthiest owners in professional sports is barred from his own team for a full year.
