On the most recent episode of the Bill Simmons Podcast, Bill and his guest, Nick Wright, were answering mailbag questions, and one listener brought up a fascinating idea that the recently suspended Clippers owner Steve Ballmer should go “scorched earth on the second apron”.
The premise is that the Clippers have been hammered with an insane penalty that leaves them without their own first-round pick until 2034, taking away a key avenue to team-building and to becoming a contender. But no matter how much the league punishes Ballmer and the Clippers, they can’t take away the financial advantage he has as one of the richest human beings alive.
There’s a world where Ballmer decides that since he has lost his picks, he’s going to spend every dollar he has, aprons and luxury taxes be damned. He can keep taking on bad contracts to take back assets in trades, and he can overpay free agents as well.
There are machinations in the CBA that may make it difficult to keep spending at a certain point, but if Ballmer decides he’s willing to write a blank luxury tax check and he doesn’t care about any of the apron penalties (it’s hard to freeze a pick that doesn’t exist, after all), then there’s a world where the Clippers could field a competitive team by the end of the 2027-28 season and tank the value of the Celtics’ pick swap acquired in the Jaylen Brown-Paul George deal.
What if Ballmer opens the checkbook like we've never seen before?
Don’t get me wrong, this would still be very difficult for the Clippers to pull off, especially in such a short period of time, as the current roster is nowhere close to contending, but it’s not impossible. If Ballmer is willing to have the highest payroll in the league, spend more than twice as much as some of the competition, and the basketball minds can make the right moves, this could certainly become a playoff team.
And as a Celtics fan, that’s a scary thought to have in the back of your mind. We know how much Ballmer loves his team, we know how much money he has and how willing he is to spend it on his team (even when it circumvents the NBA salary cap), and you’d have to imagine he’s pretty upset at the league right now and would love to stick it to them any way possible.
That 2028 pick swap the Celtics added has been looking juicier by the day, and the team is rightfully counting on it to convey as a premium draft asset, either to be used on the next stud prospect or as the centerpiece in a trade for a star. Given these recent penalties levied against LA, the pick swap feels like an almost foolproof asset, but if there’s one possible way that things could go off the rails, this might be it.
Add us as a preferred source on Google