LOS ANGELES — The NBA has finished its year-long investigation into the Los Angeles Clippers, and the team, per the league, is going to pay thirty million dollars, lose five first-round draft picks, and have its owner, Steve Ballmer, suspended for a year, which is the way a league describes the act of taking a billionaire’s basketball team and telling him he cannot, for twelve months, be in the building that he, in the specific, owns.

The case, per the league’s findings, was about salary-cap circumvention, which is the term for the act of structuring a deal so that it, in the specific, looks like one thing while, in the specific, being another thing, and the specific deal in question was the one that brought Kawhi Leonard to the team, and the specific structure was a sponsorship, and the sponsorship was, per the investigators, the part that was, in the specific, not a sponsorship.

Kawhi Leonard, for his part, was fined seven hundred thousand dollars and was, in the specific, not suspended, which is the way a league separates the player from the owner in a case where the player, in the specific, was the point of the deal, and the deal, in the specific, was the point of the investigation.

"The NBA said Ballmer approved a deal because he knew it was a precondition for the company to go into a sponsorship deal with Leonard" — The Athletic

The part of the story that belongs in the first paragraph is the draft picks, because a fine is, in the specific, money, and money is, in the specific, a thing a team with a billionaire owner can, in the specific, pay, but a first-round pick is, in the specific, a player, and a player is in the specific, a thing that a team cannot, in the specific, buy back, and five first-round picks is, in the specific, five players the team will, in the specific, never have, in exchange for a deal that the team, in the specific, has already, in the specific, made.

The “novel theory,” as the investigators put it, was the owner’s explanation, and the novel theory was that it was, in the specific, all right to introduce a business partner to a player, as long as the player, or the player’s representative, was, in the specific, the one who asked, and the asking, per the investigators, was, in the specific, the part that was, in the specific, arranged.

THE PUNISHMENT, AT A GLANCE

  • The team: $30 million fine
  • The picks: five first-round picks forfeited
  • The owner: Steve Ballmer, suspended one year
  • The player: Kawhi Leonard, $700,000 fine, no suspension
  • The charge: salary-cap circumvention
  • The length of the investigation: nearly a year

The practical effect of a one-year suspension for an owner is that the man who built the arena, and named the building, and put his face on the wall of the team’s locker room, is, for twelve months, going to be, in the specific, not in the locker room, and the locker room, per the locker room, is going to, in the specific, notice.

At press time, the Clippers, in the specific, had not, in the specific, said whether they would appeal, which is the way a team with five draft picks and a suspended owner answers a question it is, in the specific, still deciding, and the fine is, in the specific, still thirty million.