Five first-round picks gone after massive punishment handed out - and Lou Lamoriello's old cap case is back

The NBA just handed down one of the harshest penalties in modern sports history, and hockey people immediately thought of a case that still lives rent free in NHL circles.

Steve Ballmer and the Los Angeles Clippers were stripped of five first round picks, fined $30 million and hit with suspensions for Ballmer, Lawrence Frank and Gillian Zucker after a yearlong salary cap circumvention probe involving Kawhi Leonard.

Leonard has to pay $700,000 in restitution tied to improper benefits given to his uncle and former business rep Dennis Robertson, who is now banned from all NBA business dealings.

No suspension or contract void for Leonard himself.

The scale of it drew instant comparisons to the last time a major North American league came down hard on cap circumvention, back when Lou Lamoriello ran the New Jersey Devils in 2010.

Lamoriello signed Ilya Kovalchuk to a 17 year, $102 million deal built to taper off deep into his 40s, a front loaded structure designed to lower the annual cap hit.

The NHL rejected it, an independent arbitrator agreed it was circumvention, and New Jersey was fined $3 million while forfeiting a third round pick and a deferred first rounder.

That penalty stood as the league's benchmark cap case for years before it was softened in 2014 after Kovalchuk left for the KHL.

Lamoriello, who parted ways with the Islanders GM job last year, built a reputation for pushing every boundary the CBA allowed.

The Clippers ruling shows leagues will swing the hammer hard when they believe a team crossed the line, hockey included.

Whether the NHL would ever hand out something this severe again is worth watching as cap strategists digest the fallout in Los Angeles.

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