NBA commissioner Adam Silver finds himself in an ironic situation with the Los Angeles Clippers and their owner, Steve Ballmer. In September, the league announced it was investigating allegations that the Clippers circumvented the NBA salary cap; the team was accused of funneling money to star forward Kawhi Leonard through a sham endorsement deal with a now-bankrupt climate finance startup in which Ballmer was an investor, a claim the Clippers and Leonard deny.
Eleven years ago, Silver handed then-owner Donald Sterling a lifetime ban for making racist comments. The decision — made less than three months after Silver took the job and hailed at the time as a sign of his moral courage and business acumen — set in motion a chain of events that ultimately led to Ballmer's $2 billion purchase of the Clippers, just after Ballmer retired as Microsoft Corp.'s chief executive.