Clippers Rock Bottom 9.0, Plus Charles Barkley on the Clips, 76ers, Lakers, ESPN, and Why He Loves Josh Allen

Key takeaways

• The league stripped the Clippers of five first-round picks (2029 through 2033), suspended Steve Ballmer a year with a $30 million fine, and suspended president Lawrence Frank six months. Ballmer is barred from Clippers home games for a year—a penalty Simmons calls hollow for a $15 billion owner. Simmons argues the fans absorb the real damage and floats refunds or opt-outs for season-ticket holders, noting he holds partial season tickets himself and signed a five-year commitment tied to the new Intuit Dome.
• Simmons walks through the evidence that failed the "sniff test": a roughly $28 million arrangement with Aspiration and other sponsors, four companies that had never signed endorsements of that size and never did again, minimal performance obligations for Kawhi Leonard, no public announcement of any deal, and internal emails describing payments as "cash flow neutral." Uncle Dennis had pushed for $10 million a year in extra endorsements. Kawhi paid only a $700,000 fine and was cleared to be traded to Toronto, which Barkley found suspicious given Toronto's grievance from 2019.
• Simmons frames this as the most depressing NBA situation since the early-1980s Cavaliers, comparing the lost-picks spiral to the Joe Smith Timberwolves, who reached one conference finals in 2004 and then missed the playoffs for years during Kevin Garnett's prime. He recites decades of Clippers mismanagement, from flipping a young Moses Malone to passing on Kobe and Garnett to trading Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and picks for Paul George.
• Barkley cannot explain Boston trading Jalen Brown to a division rival coming off an All-NBA season, saying he was asked about it thousands of times in Philadelphia and had no answer. He believes the move revived a dead Sixers team and directly enabled LeBron James signing there, and that a healthy Celtics core would have been the East favorite. Brad Stevens's public comments suggested the Tatum-Brown pairing had run its course and was not sustainable under the second apron.
• Barkley insists the Lakers pushed LeBron out, with the decision effectively made in January or February before Luka Doncic's injury sparked a late-season surge. He says LeBron was headed back to Cleveland until something spooked him, guessing an under-the-table three-year commitment to James Harden, and that ending his career with a title in Cleveland would have made it the greatest career in sports history. Getting swept two straight postseasons, Barkley argues, means the "defying Father Time" talk is overblown regardless of box scores.
• Barkley predicts Oklahoma City and San Antonio win five of the next ten titles and calls Dylan Harper and Stephon Castle the next Steph Curry and Klay Thompson. He lists Utah and Indiana as sleepers, calls the Knicks championship run a one-off perfect storm, and says the East is now deeper than the West. On his own future, he dislikes Inside the NBA airing once a month on ESPN, calls it disrespectful to fans who cannot find the show, and says he and Ernie Johnson are a package deal with next season likely his last, having stayed mainly to protect about 200 crew jobs and having turned down more money from NBC.

Notable moments

• Around 05:40, Simmons says the Clippers "could basically throw a bar mitzvah in 2032 for how fucking stupid they are."
• Around 24:20, Barkley: "The Clippers are not very good at cheating. They got busted."
• Around 27:40, Barkley argues they should have at least filmed a fake commercial to cover the payments.
• Around 29:00, Barkley tells the story of Houston making him take a pay cut to sign Scottie Pippen, then refusing to restore the money the next year.
• Around 36:20, Barkley: "It's impossible to be bad at sports" if you know what you're doing, citing Minnesota drafting two point guards who were not Steph Curry.
• Around 40:00, Barkley says he was asked thousands of times why Boston traded Jalen Brown to Philadelphia and "9,752 times I said I have zero idea why."
• Around 49:40, Barkley: "The Lakers didn't want LeBron."
• Around 54:00, Barkley offers a standing bet that OKC and San Antonio win five championships in the next ten years.
• Around 75:00, Barkley: "I want to die on the golf course... I don't want to die on ESPN," picturing the 13th hole.
• Near the end, Barkley picks Buffalo over Seattle 21-17 in the Super Bowl, wanting Josh Allen and the Bills off the "shit list," and calls the Seahawks the most disrespected champion in years.

Time saved: 1 hour, 35 minutes.