Are the Clippers unique, or uniquely bad at this?

Is this just an Uncle Dennis problem? Or a Steve Ballmer problem?

Good morning. Should passengers bring their own duct tape in the event an airline seatmate is a scumbag, or do the planes have that already? Just asking. Let's basketball.

One of the arguments from those who didn't believe the Clippers would get harshly punished for the Kawhi Leonard cap circumvention violations was that this is actually commonplace, and what's rare is the glimpse we're getting behind the curtain through Pablo Torre's amazing and relentless investigation. Is it a crime if everyone's doing it?

Now that the NBA has indeed harshly punished the Clippers, it raises the question: is everyone actually doing it?

Here the possible answers.

Only the Clippers were doing it. Remember, the Clippers got nailed in 2015 for including a Lexus endorsement deal in a pitch deck to re-sign DeAndre Jordan. Gillian Zucker was identified as the culprit that time around, and Steve Ballmer took it on the chin with a $250,000 fine. (They did still get Jordan after an eventful kidnapping. DAJ ended up not doing the Lexus deal.) We have not seen a single other credible accusation of salary cap circumvention since then, and definitely not NBA sanctions on teams for doing so. That the Clippers – and specifically Zucker, then new to the team – got pegged in 2015 and then four years later pulled this scheme with Kawhi (with Zucker essentially the point guard of it) might be an indication that this scam is something only the Clippers were doing. It's telling too that the Lakers, ratted out Uncle Dennis' crazy requests given the franchise's storied history of landing major free agents (including LeBron James a year prior). To me, the Lakers' lack of fear in sparking a cap circumvention witch hunt is an indicator that the Lakers weren't hiding anything along these lines. (The Lakers have been dinged for tampering over the years, but that's a different kind of league crime.) There's one more note here: the Wachtell Lipton report mentions an anonymous second player who was potentially going to receive dirty Clippers money. That's something we should all want to know more about, because it could help explain the scale here.

Other teams were setting up deals, but only the Clippers were actually funneling money. The whole ESPN story about a lack of evidence two weeks before the hammer came down – that's really sticking in my brain. The Clippers do legitimately seem like they were shocked by the findings and the punishment, leading to those ill-considered statements in the immediate aftermath. It seems at some level the Clippers knew they were caught red-handed connecting sponsors to their player's representative, which they know is against the rules and what Steve Ballmer was trying to explain he knew is against the rules in that initial Ramona Shelburne interview a year ago. Ballmer thought they'd covered their tracks with those fake CYA introductory emails the investigators easily identified as fake CYA introductory emails. So he was strident in defense: he thought the crime discovered by Pablo was those improper introductions, he had the made-up alibi, he thought there was no other evidence showing the funneling. What this theory supposes is that NBA franchises absolutely do connect teams with players to work out sponsorship deals, but don't go to great lengths to hide the ball or cover tracks because they are not operating somewhat sophisticated salary cap circumvention schemes. If you were only connecting your players (or free agents) with team sponsors, you wouldn't have to go to the lengths Zucker did to cover your tracks. It could literally be a phone call.

A sample: