The NBA’s punishment landed hard on the Clippers, and it left Kawhi Leonard at the center of another franchise wreckage.
Los Angeles was hit with a massive penalty: five first-round picks taken away, owner Steve Ballmer fined $30 million and suspended for a year, and Leonard fined $700,000. Per NBA, the Clippers will forfeit first-rounders in the 2029, 2030, 2031, 2032, and 2033 drafts.
The league also suspended Ballmer from all league and team activities for one year for knowingly seeking to help Mr. Leonard obtain off-court… https://t.co/OhqXDEBirj
- Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) September 2, 2026
That haul was bigger than plenty around the league expected, even if it still didn’t satisfy everyone hoping for more punishment on Leonard himself. But the damage to the Clippers is unmistakable. After seven seasons in Los Angeles, Leonard has left the franchise staring at the wreckage.
The price tag for getting him was already enormous. The Clippers had to trade for Paul George to make the deal happen, and that part of the story turned out exactly as badly as it sounded. In the end, the Clippers gave up a total of 10 first-round picks for Leonard and now have every reason to look back at the whole thing with serious buyer’s remorse.
The total cost of Kawhi Leonard signing with the Clippers:
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander
Jalen Williams
10 first-round picks
2 first-round pick swaps
Freaking unreal. pic.twitter.com/zMU2S4j2GU
- Legion Hoops (@LegionHoops) September 2, 2026
If Leonard does move on to the Toronto Raptors, it would close the book on his miserable run in Los Angeles. It would also leave the Clippers with no real path to clean this up quickly.
What makes the fallout sting even more is that this isn’t Leonard’s first trail of destruction. He already did this to the Spurs. After sitting out most of 2018-2019, he later demanded a trade, and that decision helped send San Antonio into a long rebuild that the team is only now starting to move past.
The Spurs are back, and dare I say better than they were when Kawhi was their best player. The Clippers won’t be so lucky. The NBA basically delivered a gut-punch to the Clippers.
The pick penalties are brutal because they wipe out so much of what teams use to recover. No firsts for five years, from 2028 through 2033, makes it nearly impossible to rebuild through the draft. The league even went a step further by taking a pick the Clippers had acquired from the Pacers.
Leonard, meanwhile, comes out of this with relatively little damage. He’ll likely be traded and get a fresh start with the Raptors. After everything that’s happened with the Clippers, they probably won’t miss him.
There’s also the question of what all this means for his legacy in each city. Right now, a Clippers jersey retirement looks far-fetched.
The same is true in San Antonio. And if the pattern keeps going, Toronto could end up in the same conversation.
Wherever he’s gone, trouble has followed.
In Other News...
Wolves G League Trade Could Be Setting Up Another Guard Move
A multi-team G League deal this week sent the Stockton Kings the returning player rights to Tristen Newton and Teddy Allen, a move that also involved the Delaware Blue Coats and Iowa Wolves. On its face, it is the kind of transaction that lives deep in the leagues transaction wire, but these smaller-player rights swaps often hint at broader roster churn ahead as organizations keep their options open around the edges of the NBA season.
For the Spurs, the bigger picture still comes back to the same place: Victor Wembanyama is back in the frame after his time away with the French national team, and the organization is entering a stretch where every guard and every depth move matters. San Antonio also just announced a direct-to-consumer media partnership with DAZN, giving the club another way to stay connected with fans as the on-court roster conversation keeps evolving. [Read more 🡒]
Spurs Rookie Could Force A Tough Change Behind Victor Wembanyama
Tarris Reed Jr. arrives in San Antonio with the kind of frame and raw promise that tends to make a frontcourt job a little less settled than it looked on paper. The rookie center is expected to push for minutes behind Victor Wembanyama, and for a Spurs team trying to build real depth up front, that sort of internal pressure can be a good problem to have.
Luke Kornet enters the mix as the established veteran, but Reeds physical tools give the Spurs another option if they want more size and impact around the rim on either end. How much that changes the rotation is still to be determined, but the battle for the backup center spot already looks like one of the more interesting roster fights in camp. [Read more 🡒]
Keldon Johnson Faces A Spurs Role Shift That Could Define Camp
Keldon Johnson is headed into Spurs training camp with a different kind of assignment in front of him. After years in a more on-ball role, his responsibilities figure to look slimmer in the half-court as San Antonio sorts through a roster that now has more mouths to feed and more creators to work with. Even so, Johnson is still in the mix and remains a familiar piece for a team trying to clarify how its rotation fits together.
The bigger question is how the Spurs make the most of what Johnson still does well. His playoff struggles are part of the backdrop, but camp is really about fit now, not just volume, and the staff will spend time figuring out where his energy lands best next to new and existing teammates. If he can settle into a steadier job as a rebounder, defender, and quick-trigger shooter, his season could end up being defined less by touches and more by usefulness. [Read more 🡒]