ESPN has some explaining to do after NBA drops hammer on Clippers

Remember when the NBA had supposedly found no evidence that Steve Ballmer funneled money through Clippers sponsors to Kawhi Leonard to circumvent the salary cap?

That was 16 days ago. Things have changed.

ESPN reported Aug. 17 that the NBA had found no evidence showing Ballmer funneled money through sponsors to Leonard for the purpose of circumventing the cap.

The story, from Don Van Natta Jr., Baxter Holmes and Ramona Shelburne, cited three people with knowledge of discussions between the sides. ESPN reported that the league’s attention had instead shifted toward whether the Clippers merely introducing Leonard to team sponsors violated league rules, along with questions about whether the organization properly supervised employees.

That sounded considerably better for Ballmer and the Clippers. There was one problem. The NBA immediately said ESPN’s story was wrong.

“ESPN’s article regarding the LA Clippers investigation — for which the NBA declined to cooperate — contains numerous and significant inaccuracies,” league spokesman Mike Bass said at the time. “The results in this matter will be made clear once the investigation is concluded.”

ESPN stood by its reporting. But now the investigation has concluded — with the NBA announcing that an independent investigation found a “pattern of misconduct and multiple significant rules violations” by the Clippers. That included violations of the league’s salary-cap circumvention rules involving off-court income opportunities for Leonard.

The punishment was massive. The Clippers lost five first-round picks and were fined $30 million. Ballmer was suspended from league and team activities for one year. Other Clippers executives were suspended. Leonard was ordered to pay $700,000, while former representative Dennis Robertson was banned from conducting NBA business for five years.

So what happened? There is an important distinction here. ESPN specifically reported that investigators had found no evidence Ballmer personally funneled money through sponsors to Leonard. The NBA’s final findings don’t necessarily say that Ballmer personally did precisely that.

But ESPN’s report went considerably further in its overall framing. It painted a picture of an investigation that appeared to be moving away from the explosive issue of salary-cap circumvention.

Sixteen days later, the NBA explicitly found salary-cap circumvention. That’s quite a difference.

Maybe ESPN’s sources accurately represented what investigators believed at the time. Maybe additional evidence emerged. Maybe people involved in a contentious investigation were pushing the version of events most favorable to their side.

Any of those explanations are possible. But after the NBA publicly disputed ESPN’s story and then issued findings that look dramatically different from the picture ESPN presented, some explanation is warranted.

That’s not an accusation that ESPN invented anything. It’s a fairly basic question about how one of the biggest NBA stories of the offseason went from no evidence of Ballmer funneling money through sponsors to five lost first-round picks, a $30 million fine and a one-year suspension for Ballmer in 16 days.

Hoops Wire reported ESPN’s findings at the time. So did plenty of others. That’s what news outlets do when one of the industry’s largest and most respected organizations publishes information attributed to multiple sources.

But the NBA warned everyone almost immediately that ESPN’s account contained “numerous and significant inaccuracies.”

Turns out that warning mattered. Still, ESPN stood by its reporting then.

After what the NBA announced Wednesday, it would be interesting to know if it still does.