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Tracy McGrady says Steve Ballmer is a “phenomenal owner,” but he told Front Office Sports the severe punishment Ballmer and the Clippers received from the NBA for the Kawhi Leonard salary cap circumvention scandal was “warranted.”
McGrady, a seven-time NBA All-Star who now serves as a studio analyst for NBC Sports, played under numerous owners during his 15-year career, including the DeVos family with the Magic, James Dolan with the Knicks, and Leslie Alexander with the Rockets.
He told FOS Monday that Ballmer is generally a great owner, but that a line was clearly crossed with the salary cap circumvention, which led the NBA to ban Ballmer for this entire season, fine the Clippers $30 million, and dock the team five first-round draft picks. An investigation by law firm Wachtell Lipton found the Clippers illegally violated salary cap rules by funneling millions of dollars to Leonard through third parties.
“I love his energy, and I’m sure the players love him,” McGrady told FOS editor-in-chief Daniel Roberts on an upcoming episode of Portfolio Players. “But that was bad business.”
“Trying to circumvent the salary cap is just a no-no,” McGrady said. “You eventually gonna get caught because Pablo Torre is on y’all ass.”
McGrady also poked fun at Leonard’s ability to cash in on deals that are not allowed under NBA salary cap rules while also being the face of load management (Leonard played more than 60 games in a season twice across seven seasons with the Clippers). According to Wachtell’s report, Leonard earned millions of dollars through endorsement deals with four companies—Aspiration, Daktronics, Boingo Wireless, and Lockton Insurance—while doing very little, if any, work in return.
“Kawhi got game, and I ain’t talking about on the court,” McGrady told FOS. “Kawhi a bad boy, man. You going to play half of the games, and you still come in and make deals like that? You got some skills, bro.”
Although he agrees the punishment was appropriate, McGrady bemoaned the fact that the Clippers were the team caught up in the scandal, given how far the franchise had come. “I think it’s a shame, you know, I really do,” he said. “Being that it had to be the Clippers. Why the Clippers, man? In my time, the Clippers were so damn bad.”
During McGrady’s 15 NBA seasons, the Clippers finished over .500 only twice (he never played for the Clippers or Ballmer). By the very end of McGrady’s career, the Clippers had started to turn things around thanks to the acquisition of Chris Paul and the drafting of Blake Griffin. Although the Paul-Griffin Clippers never advanced past the Western Conference Semifinals, they were a perennial playoff team. Once Ballmer purchased the team for $2 billion from disgraced former owner Donald Sterling, the future seemed promising for the franchise, especially after acquiring Leonard and Paul George.
Griffin, who also spoke with FOS recently, agreed that the Clippers were rightly penalized for violating the NBA’s salary cap rules.
Like McGrady, Griffin sympathizes for the fanbase. “That is an extremely loyal fan base,” he told Roberts during an upcoming episode of Portfolio Players. “I still live in LA and run into Clipper fans all the time, and the way they just roll with that team and rep that team, good or bad, is incredibly impressive, and it makes being a former Clipper—I have a lot of pride in that. Even though [it’s] not a franchise that has had a ton of success.”
Following the NBA’s punishment, Ballmer was originally resolute in planning to fight the penalty. However, a few days after the New York Times reported that the U.S. Department of Justice launched a probe into the situation, he relented and apologized to “fans, employees, and my fellow team owners.”
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