Yahoo Sports’ Jason Fitz and Caroline Fenton discuss if removing the midseason exhibition from the team is a proper punishment for their reported role in circumventing the salary cap.
You may remember this tweet from earlier this year.
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NBA All-Star 2026 is in Los Angeles, California.
The 75th annual NBA All-Star Game will be played on Sunday, February 15th.
At the Intuit Dome, the new home of the Los Angeles Clippers.
Now that was obviously earlier this year as we look ahead to the All-Star game on Yahoo Sports Daily, Caroline Fent and Jason Fitz, why are we talking about that now?
Well, are we sure that game is going to be played at the Intuit Dome?
Look, we all understand that the Clippers’ investigation is going to be a long one.
And I talked to a couple of people that I think are pretty well sourced across the NBA.
And one thing that was stressed to me yesterday, Caroline, is that there will be no fast resolution to any of this.
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So, however it’s resolved, it’s going to take time.
But when you start to look at the controversy around the Clippers, Kawhi, and the possible circumvention of the salary cap as we continue to get more and more information, I guess my question is, how confident are we that the All-Star game is actually going to be in LA in the end?
To Intuit Dome, because there is precedent.
Remember, with only a few months, the league moved the All-Star game out of Charlotte over to New Orleans over what was then called the bathroom bill in 2016, 2017.
So, you know, we talked about that was over a seven-month period, I should say.
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We got about five months here, but there is another place in LA that this game can be played.
As much as this hurts Clippers fans to hear, it is easy to keep this game in Los Angeles and simply play it at Crypto, play it at the home of the Lakers instead of the home of the Clippers.
It doesn’t require any change in travel.
It doesn’t require any modification in what teams are expecting to do.
There’s no extra expense to any of it.
You just move it across town.
So if I’m the NBA, I’m certainly looking, even if they’re just still investigating, why not move it from the Intuit Dome though?
Because it would feel like a big fat middle finger to the Clippers, to Steve Ballmer, to Clipper fans everywhere, to not just move the All-Star game, but to bring it to Crypto, like that is archnemesis number one, the Los Angeles Lakers.
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So I think that’s why that is why you wouldn’t do it, because you might feel like it is so disrespectful to this Clippers franchise.
But you could also put that thing flip down and flip it and reverse it and say, well, it is so disrespectful of Steve Ballmer and the Clippers organization to commit one of the biggest no-nos in the NBA, and that is cap circumvention, which is exactly what Steve Ballmer and the Clippers are being investigated for.
I do agree with you though, that if this investigation is still ongoing.
Look, I don’t really know if I need to do more investigation on my part.
Pablo Torre has done some fabulous investigating and some fabulous reporting that if it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck, it’s a duck, and it looks a whole heck of a lot like a duck based off of what we know right now.
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But I do understand that the NBA has a much higher threshold than I do, at least in the court of public opinion.
So if this investigation is still ongoing by the time All-Star rolls around, or over the next coming months while we’re still in a window where you can make some changes and some logistical adjustments to the All-Star game, I think you have to move it.
Even if the investigation is still ongoing, even if there is a shred of doubt in anyone’s minds that Steve Ballmer and the Clippers are guilty or not.
I still think you have to move it because I think it’s a bad look if you reward essentially this organization with an All-Star game in their arena while they’re investigated for committing a big fat no-no.