HAMMERED: NBA ENFORCES Salary Cap Rules—What the Punishment Means for Pelicans and Kawhi Leonard

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1:00Your team every day. The NBA just hammered the clippers and pelicans fans should be very, very happy. Lockdown Pelicans, let's go. You are Lockdown Pelicans, your daily New Orleans Pelicans podcast. Part of the Lockdown Podcast Network. Your team every day. Welcome to Lockdown Pelicans. I'm your host Jake Madison, the NBA just absolutely dropped the hammer on the Los Angeles clippers. Five first round picks gone. Thirty million dollar fine to Steve Balmer. Balmer suspended for a year. Lawrence Frank suspended for six months. Some other people suspended. And you're probably wondering. What in the world does any of this have to do with the New Orleans Pelicans? Because look, this is a Pelicans podcast. I'm not going to come on and just rant about the clippers for a little bit here though.

2:05There are some lessons to learn. So yeah, look, hammered another team in the Western Conference. That seems great to me in New Orleans. Love that, right? I actually do think this is very good news for the Pelicans because look, this is a fact what I'm about to say. The Pelicans don't have the richest owner in the NBA. They're one of two teams that has never paid the luxury tax. Not that they've necessarily ever had a team, at least in the Gale Benson era, that's worthy of paying the luxury tax, right? We also know it's at times hard to get them to invest in this franchise to the level that they should. When David Griffin came in, he had to kind of fight for every dollar to upgrade the practice facility to do other things as well. They don't play in Los Angeles or New York. They don't have some of the financial advantages that other franchises might have to let their owners spend when it comes to this sort of thing. But truthfully, right?

3:05And I can talk about owner and whether that helps or hurts you all we want on today's show, but we're not going to do that. You want to know why? Because none of that matters when it comes to the salary cap. And what the NBA did was say that the Los Angeles clippers were circumventing the salary cap. And when you, as I drop stuff, when you look at the evidence, whether it's Pavlo Torrey finds out the other stuff, other investigations for me, SP and other places, a lot of smoking guns there that this was circumventing the salary cap without a question here. Everyone needs to play by the same rules. Everybody needs to play by the same rules. And today, the NBA came out and said those rules actually matter. And that is a massively important thing because, look, Pelicans don't have some super crazy rich owner like Steve Bomber that will throw money around. So you need the playing field to be as level as possible when it comes to the rules if the

4:09Pelicans want to have any sort of chance. And if it only comes down to the teams with like the rich ass owners are going to win, there's no point in having a whole league when it comes to when it comes down to it then. So that's why I think this is a big deal. With what happened today, the NBA announcing that its investigation found the clippers violated the league salary cap circumvention rules through a number of off court income opportunities involving Kawaii Leonard and it goes well beyond just the aspiration deal, the trees that started this whole story. According to the NBA, the clippers helped initiate off court income opportunities between Kawaii and four separate companies that did business with them. The league says the clippers helped facilitate endorsement agreements offered team, offered team business to help induce companies to make those deals. That's what this is, right? We talked about it with DeMarcus Cousins, you know, when Zatterans was the Jersey patch

5:10for the Pelicans, he had an endorsement deal with them who connected them. You're allowed to connect players in sponsorships here. But essentially what's happening here is the clippers offered team business to also encourage these companies to pay Kawaii Leonard money. You can see the money laundering train from there when it comes to this sort of thing, right? What was also funny about DeMarcus Cousins after he left New Orleans, he sell had the endorsement deal with Zatterans and they're like, so this is done, right? And he's like, no, I'm going to keep the money and I'll keep making endorsements for you. They couldn't get out of the contract when he was no longer with the team, which I think is just kind of a funny thing here. But the clippers, they did a lot of this team business they did was just designed to put more money in Kawaii Leonard's pocket. So the punishment is massive. The clippers lose a first round pick in each draft from 2019, sorry, 2019. Well, 2029 through 2033. It's five first round picks total.

6:11They were fine $30 million and Steve Balmer suspended from all clippers and league activities for a year here. Clippers president of business operations, Jillian Zucker was suspended for a year. Lawrence Frank suspended for six months. And the league is also going to be monitored, sorry, the franchise is going to be monitored by the league for five years. And Kawaii Leonard was fine $700,000. The NBA called these flagrant violations. Yeah, this is important, right? Like this is about as far from a slap on the wrist as you can get. This is the NBA, truthfully dropping a hammer down because there is a version of this investigation, a version of all of this where Steve Balmer was fined like $5 million and everybody moved on into Balmer in his net worth $30 million. Isn't even really a deterrent, let alone what it would have been if it was like a little bit of money here, right? A financial penalty isn't really a deterrent here. But now what you're telling is all owners, you all got to play by the same rules.

7:15I said it on the show, I said it on Twitter here. I have a hot take that's probably an unpopular opinion. There is part of me that wants to applaud Steve Balmer for trying to do this. There are so many owners in the NBA that look are cheap. So many owners that don't want to fully commit to winning. But Steve Balmer was so fully committed to winning that he cheated and cheated hard and did it in a very sloppy way that got him caught. But hey, I like that he wanted to win so hard that he was going to try and spend more money than he was allowed. In some degree, you want your owner to do that sort of thing, to some degree, not actually. So this is where the salary cap matters. The salary cap, the luxury tax, the first apron, the second apron. All matters here because it won't let one owner outspend others. Look at what? And I'm a Dodger fan. Look what the Dodgers are doing in baseball. We kind of all assume it's going to lead to some sort of lockout here and everyone hates that they just have so much more money and look at all the deferred money. Look at everything that they're doing, right?

8:19Yeah, it doesn't make the league competitively balanced as they go for a 3P right now. I don't mean you're going to win every year. They're clearly the favorite for a reason. It's because they're spending more so than everybody else because they're a richer franchise than virtually maybe they are than any other franchise. So you don't want that in the NBA. There's people who are so turned off by this era of baseball because of it. Not me being a fan, but I get it that if this happened to the NBA, you'd go into the season thinking like what's the point? It doesn't even matter. We don't have a chance here. You'd be constantly feeling that. That's not what it is in the NBA because of the salary cap and all of that. And that matters. And the NBA said we don't want you. The NBA came out today and said like you, Pelican fans, you Memphis Grizzly fans or other fans. We don't want you to feel like you never have a chance because other teams have a richer owner than your favorite team. You're right. That shouldn't matter a little bit, but it shouldn't be the deciding factor.

9:21And that's why the deciding factors are the first apron, the second apron, all of those things. That matters here. And the NBA came in and said like, yeah, we want to try and make sure that everyone feels like you've got a shot. So you've all got to play by the same rules. And the clippers were not. And they got caught. They got got right. And so that's important. New Orleans already has disadvantages. It's not LA. It's not New York. It's not Miami here. Right. You don't have a generation of players deciding they want to go team up in New Orleans because they want to live here. You're also not going to have the same endorsement opportunities as a Los Angeles, as a New York or another city here. Right. You're never going to be able to eliminate every advantage. One NBA city has over another. That's impossible. Right. And you can't even ask the league to do that sort of thing. But what you can do is you can regulate the owners to a certain degree. And that's what the NBA and Adam Silver did here. 40 million against the salary cap means 40 million against the salary cap.

10:25Simple as that. You know, you've got to really applaud the NBA for coming down hard because look, it sounds like the clippers are going to want to fight this and they're going to go to court and whatever. It's like so obvious they did something here. And so, you know, they were punished hard. Five first round picks is brutal. They have one first round pick in next year's draft. That's a swap with the OKC Thunder. And then they don't have a first round pick through 2033. They'll get one in 2034. Brutal. They are about to enter into a very, very dark stretch, a very dark stretch in my opinion. Good. They should be. This is totally what it should be and what should happen here. So I think this is a big win for it. This isn't even a small market thing. This is like a rich owner versus I don't want to say a poor owner because that's not a thing, a less rich owner. So good on the NBA for doing what they did today and coming in pretty hard on the clippers

11:29when it comes down to it. There's also a cautionary tale here because the clippers that like era there about to end up in, y'all, it's going to be dark. It's going to be dark. DC weight by friend, I am so sorry for you. That's coming up here next in today's episode of Longtime Pelicans. You've got to be really thinking about the future every moment when you're a franchise. Let's look at that coming up here next. Today's episode of Longtime Pelicans brought to you by Van Duel. College football Saturdays are already packed with reasons to get excited. In this season, Van Duel is giving fans even more ways to get in on every matchup. Back your favorite team, build the same game, parlay, bet team props, make your picks on the biggest game of the weekend. Throughout the season, keep an eye on the Van Duel app for even more ways to get rewarded with a full slate of college football every Saturday. I am pumped. There are plenty of opportunities to follow the games and new and find new ways to get involved.

12:31Look, I'm going to be on the couch all Saturday watching games from morning to night. I'm going to be watching games where I don't particularly care about these teams, right? But all you have to do is open the Van Duel app and now all of a sudden, you've got more ways to get involved. The game's more exciting. It gives you reason to stay on the couch and bounce around watching college football all day long. So visit fandool.com to get started. Thank you for making Lockdown Pelicans your first listen. Today and every day, we're here Monday through Friday, the number one Pelicans podcast covering everything you want to know about this Pelicans team. So please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Join over 12,000 Pelicans fans on YouTube as well and becoming every day. That means you listen Monday through Friday to the Lockdown Pelicans podcast. If you're an every day or let me know in the comments down below, don't forget you can also watch us on the Gulf Coast Sports and Entertainment Network every weekday at 10.30 a.m. same place.

13:32You watch your Pelicans play. The Clippers are a cautionary tale to the rest of the NBA and you're going to be like, Jake, you have course. You just talk like they just lost five first round Olympics. Don't don't cheat, right? Yeah, yeah, I get that part. That's the obvious part here. Come on. You know, I'm going to take it a step further. This is about what happens when a team goes all in and then it doesn't work out. That's what I'm thinking about here. This is the push the chips in all in all in move, right? This is what the Clippers did. They push their chips all in for co-I Leonard and Paul George in the same summer. When you factor in the picks that they sent to O.K.C. for Paul George, when you factor in the punishment from co-I Leonard, it's 10 first round picks. It's 10 first round picks for co-I Leonard and Paul George.

14:37But it's not just 10 first round picks. It's 10 first round picks and Shay Gildes Alexander, which is who's worth how many? How many? Right? For an era that was awful. Let's look at the Clippers playoff history. I need to look at their team history on all this. This team did nothing to justify losing everything. It was 18, 19, I think, when they got co-I Leonard here. The Clippers lost in the first round, lost in the conference. They made one conference finals in this tenure. They also missed the playoffs three times. That's gross. Disgusting. That is an awful era to give up 10 first round picks plus... Sorry, it's... It's... No, it would have been 1920, so the W. So, they made one conference finals. That's it.

15:37For 10 first round picks, for Shay Gildes Alexander and now, like, maybe, you know, whatever else is going to come out of this sort of thing. They went all in and it didn't work. Imagine instead of them being docked these draft picks, forfitting these draft picks, they just traded them all away. 10 first round picks traded away to get co-I Leonard, Paul George, plus you traded away Shay Gildes Alexander. Not worth it, right? Like, they went all in and now they're going to have to, you know, pay the price. But really, the people that are going to pay the price are the Clippers fans more so than anything else. You know, and this leads to the largest thing here. Is it worth sacrificing your future for the present? We saw that under the Del Dems tenure here in New Orleans and look, I don't really look back fondly with Rose-colored glasses on the Del Dems tenure being out of his, I've seen some people do that. No, that's not me. Shouldn't have traded away some of those draft picks. I don't care if ownership puts a win now, pressure on you. Don't do it and do what's right for the franchise here.

16:38I mean, I also understand why you would do it. You know, you need to figure out when it's actually worth sacrificing your future for the present. I think the Pelicans are in a situation like this. There is a way towards long-term sustainability behind fears and queen. Maybe trade Murphy too. But it involves probably not trying to upgrade the center position this year because you're going to need future draft picks to do that or future salary cap flexibility. That's not an important thing to do, right? You can make a point that, you know, the Clippers did what fans want, spend money, chase stars, trade picks, act aggressive, and you don't worry about five years from now. That sounds great until five years from now arrives. The Clippers have one pick that's going to be in the late 20s this coming year. And then what? Right? Like, then what? Are they going to end up doing here? That's nothing good. You know, you might be frustrated that this team was so cautious this offseason and I certainly am too. But I'm glad they're not trading away future first-round picks, right?

17:42That's, you know, similar to what they did with the Derek Queen trade. Could you not keep doing that sort of thing? You know, the Clippers are certainly an extreme version of talking about this right now. But the lesson for Joe Dumaars is, you know, it's not be aggressive to be aggressive like he was talking about last offseason. It's not have discipline just to have discipline. It's not just be conservative. It's no, no, when your moment is, and this franchise at times, I think, has never actually understood that here. The Clippers maybe they truthfully thought the moment was Kauai Leonard and Paul George. It turns out that was not it at all. And it's going to be rough for them. You know, they might not be horrifically bad, but not having first-round picks going to hurt. You know, there's still the Clippers. They still are in LA. Players will want to go there. But I was supposed to upgrade the roster significantly without first-round picks, right? It's not a great situation here. You know, you look at this Pelicans team and is this a roster, you know, that the Pelicans

18:46should be trading any sort of future draft picks to try and improve? Whether it's, you see Michael Porter Jr. Bandy about that. By the way, I can confirm there's nothing going on there. You know, I've seen, I've even talked about Miles Turner and your Jared Allen. They shouldn't be trading for those guys. Like they shouldn't be. They shouldn't be using any sort of draft capital to go and get any of those players right now. You know, I saw it as I was about to record the show talking about, you know, in yesterday's show with Trey Murphy in the value and I haven't read the full comment. You know, actually let me pull it up if I can do that really quickly. It was an interesting comment. And I wanted to actually either comment on it into it here or here we go. Derek Young. Hey, dude, you always talk about value when it comes to Trey. How about talking about keeping our stars and building a powerhouse team instead of just being a farm team for the rest of the NBA? Right, Derek Young 2115. How do you build a powerhouse team here? Tell me, what's the path to doing that?

19:48I don't see one. I don't think a lot of people see one right now of building that here. So that's the case, right? Like, if you don't have a path to doing it, don't try and do it because you're going to fail. And then after that, after you fail at it, it's a wasteland. That's what the clippers are going to be. It's a wasteland. You could argue right now that the coiled Leonard move or you could argue that when you combine coiled Leonard and Paul George, Paul George was a trade that the Paul George trade when combined with coiled Leonard is more damaging than it is. Then the Luka Dachic trade was to the Dallas Mavericks. They're in a bad spot. You cannot mortgage the future because eventually the future comes calling here. And that's the situation the clippers are in. Pelkins, you know, according to Derek here, should be mortgaging the future. No, that's an awful idea given the actual reality of this roster here.

20:53And now it goes on to say, hey, if we trade trade, we could get three first round guys, like Hawkins, which if I'm not mistaken, was the first one. Yeah, look, man, it's also about timelines and where guys are. That's part of it too. And so I look at this and man sucks to be a clippers fan. It's all, oh, I got to really say with that, just looks rough. Don't mortgage the future unless you're damn well sure that you got it. This team right now, my opinion, don't got it. Do you agree? Do you disagree? Let me know in the comments down below coming up next. A name I don't know if you would have thought would have been on the top 25 players in New Orleans and be a history David Wesley. I'm excited for this one. That's coming up here next in today's episode of Lockdown Pelkins. Wrong button. This one.

21:56And thank you for making Lockdown Pelkins your first listen today and every day. We're here Monday through Friday the number one Pelicans podcast covering everything you want to know about this Pelicans team. So please subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Join over 12,000 Pelicans fans on YouTube as well and become an every day. It means you listen Monday through Friday to the Lockdown Pelicans podcast. And if you're in every day or let me know in the comments down below for your second listen, make it locked on Saints with Ross Jackson. We are so ever closer to the black and gold season starting. Make locked on Saints your second listen today. Part of the locked on podcast network your team every day. Number 17 on the list of top 25 players in New Orleans NBA history. We have David Wesley. I will actually actually someone asked this the other day. Could I read the list of the top 25 25. Gravis Vazquez 24 Eric Gordon 23. A mecca, Oka for 22 Tyreeke Evans 21 Jonas Valentinus 20 Jose Alvarado 19 Ryan Anderson. And I'd actually like to flip those guys. But it's too late 19 Ryan Anderson yesterday 18 was Rijon Rondo.

22:59Today is David Wesley. Now these are my personal rankings. You can have a different one though. I'd be willing to bet your list will be pretty similar here. Wesley's case is a little different than some of the other players around him because with David Wesley, I don't think you're just really talking about production when it comes to it. When it comes to it with him here. You know, I think David Wesley is more about continuity. You're talking about somebody who helped bridge the Charlotte era to the New Orleans era. He helped bridge the Hornets from Charlotte to New Orleans. And then all so by the way, he kind of helped bridge the Hornets into the Pelicans era from the broadcast booth with everything. That's a pretty unique person player in franchise history. You know, when the Hornets moved from Charlotte in 2022, David Wesley came with him and he wasn't someone trying to kind of like figure out an organization. He'd been with the team. He understood the roster. He understood the culture. And when New Orleans, when the NBA basketball arrived here in New Orleans, Wesley is one

24:03of the established veterans helping introduce this franchise to a brand new fan base. And that kind of stuff truthfully matters to me. He's also on a team that made back-to-back playoffs, which is one of the two times in franchise history that was like ever the case. So something that I want you to keep in mind for this project is we're doing it. We're not looking at his career on the Hornets. It's only his starting with the first season in New Orleans. That kind of hurts Wesley a little bit. More or less his best individual seasons. Truthfully, top to bottom, we're before he was here in New Orleans. Though when you look at his time in Charlotte, that 0-1, sorry, 2001 season where he averaged it over 17 points per game is probably his best. But for his time here in New Orleans, this is someone who was at 15 points per game, 3.3 assists. He shot it from 3 pretty well before. 3 point shooting was what it is now.

25:05It's 37.3%. That was a pretty good numbers. All things considered here. He started 73 games. It was part of a team that immediately made the playoffs. 147 games that first year here in New Orleans. When you think about a starting point for calling it an expansion in franchise, winning 47 games and making the playoffs is really great. This wasn't like a long rebuild where you had to wait years and years and years before seeing meaningful games. You had these guys come in and immediately give this team a playoff team. Wesley was a big part of it. He could score. He could shoot, you know, undersize, but kind of scrappy at times. And I think that's part of the story that I think resonated here in New Orleans. The fact that he played 14 seasons across the NBA is kind of wild to me when you look at what he was really doing. And so him being that bridge and being there in the beginning, I value those players. I value anyone, you know, on this in the history of this franchise that has made the playoffs

26:06twice. Right? Like that's not actually a thing they do very often here. And I think making back-to-back playoffs, the franchises only done that one other time. And I talk about that a lot because this was pretty important here. You know, that goes a long way for me. He was part of that bridge essentially from, you know, when this team moved to New Orleans, you know, and then the next year, they drafted David West. And so, you know, you actually had David West and David Wesley on the same team for a year. And you could kind of see that transition like literally start to happen on the court right in front of your eyes. You know, he eventually was traded to Houston. So he played two and a half seasons here. That's about it, right? He's on here because he was part of that original team that came here and because of his role as a publicans broadcaster that I think definitely matters. I'm not going to put him any higher, you know, it's 17 on this list, but he was an important starter on the first New Orleans NBA team that was back in the city.

27:11And again, we're not counting the jazz for all of this. And a guy that was like a legitimate good starter. Yeah, that kind of stuff matters to me here. That's how you end up getting this team to where it is right now. That first year, I think is pretty important. Again, you brought in a winning team. We've seen New Orleans will show up for this team when they win. He was part of that right in the beginning. Let me know what you think about David Westling in the comments down below. That's going to do it for this episode of Lockdown Pelicans. I think the color and the camera is a little bit better. As always, I'm your host, Jake Madison at Nola Jake on Twitter. This is the Lockdown Pelicans podcast part of the Lockdown podcast network. Your team every day and be back with you all tomorrow to close out the week. Thank you for making Lockdown your first listen every day. For your second listen, find the Lockdown NBA podcast where there's no off season.

28:13West Matt and Hayes keep you up to date on contract negotiations, rumors and everything you need to be the most informed NBA fan. Find Lockdown NBA on YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts. Part of the Lockdown podcast network. Your team every day.