“People of privilege will always risk their complete destruction rather than surrender any material part of their advantage.” – John Kenneth Galbraith
Capitalism, like basketball, only works if the richest guy in the arena can’t make up his own rules.
Los Angeles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer should understand this better than most. He spent 34 years at Microsoft, including 14 as CEO. He spent much of his early tenure dealing with the aftermath of one of the most consequential antitrust cases in American history.
On Wednesday, the NBA suspended him for a year, fined his team $30 million and confiscated five first-round draft picks. The league concluded that Ballmer violated salary cap rules in arranging millions of dollars in outside compensation for superstar Kawhi Leonard.
Ballmer and the Clippers deny wrongdoing. “We vehemently reject the NBA’s findings, which are the result of a heavily biased investigation seeking to justify a predetermined narrative rather than facts and evidence,” the team said in a statement.
But NBA Commissioner Adam Silver called the violations flagrant and said the punishment reflected their seriousness.
Ballmer is the 9th-richest person on Earth, with more than $156 billion, according to Forbes, as of this writing. If there were no rules about salary caps, he could recruit the top players in the world and pay them ANYTHING.
Why not just let the Clippers carry the ball, tackle point guards, move the three-point line, and award extra points while we’re at it? The answer is simple: Nobody loves a rigged game.
And this is why some people on the left are turning against capitalism. They increasingly see a game rigged for people with enough money and power to make their own rules.
You want to support free markets? Demand the rule of law. You want to support your favorite NBA team? Call all the fouls. Even when the guy committing them is worth $152 billion.
An aspiring fraud
Business Blunders readers may remember Aspiration. Ballmer personally invested millions in this supposedly green fintech startup and struck a $300 million sponsorship deal between Aspiration and the Clippers.
Then Aspiration gave Leonard a marketing deal worth up to $28 million in cash and $20 million in stock that reportedly required little or no promotional work.
In October, Business Blunders suggested “Aspiration may have been the Clippers’ most creative payroll department.”
Read More: There’s No Such Thing As A Green Bank Or A Fair Game (Business Blunders)
At the time, its founder Joseph Sanberg had pleaded guilty to fraud charges after admitting to faking bank statements, inventing phantom revenue, and inflating cash balances while preaching the gospel of sustainability. And when the green in his green fintech startup finally ran out, it filed bankruptcy in March 2025 leaving investors in the dirt.
Sandberg is now serving a 14-year prison sentence.
Who knew basketball had a penalty box?
Now Ballmer can spend the next year watching the games on a big screen TV from home like the little people who can’t afford a Clippers ticket. Fortunately, he’s rich enough to afford premium League Pass.
This is the guy who made his fortune helping Microsoft jam Windows into practically every computer in the world. Then he became CEO and spent so much time defending this operating system franchise that he missed much of what came next.
Microsoft gave us Zune. Remember Zune? Me neither.
Meanwhile, Google took search. Facebook took social media. And Apple reinvented the smart phone.
“There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance,” Ballmer declared in 2007.
He figured Apple might capture 2% or 3% of the market while Microsoft’s software would run 60% or 70% or 80% of the world's phones.
He’s a salesman. Not a visionary. And now it looks like he cheats at basketball, too.
