LOS ANGELES — Kawhi Leonard’s long-running re-evaluation process has expanded beyond basketball after Reuters reported that federal prosecutors are conducting a criminal investigation into the Los Angeles Clippers’ dealings involving the star forward.
The federal inquiry is reported to be in its early stages. Reuters said at least one subpoena has been issued and that it remains unclear whether the matter will lead to criminal charges or the presentation of evidence to a grand jury. An investigation, by itself, is not a finding of wrongdoing.
The report follows the NBA’s recent findings and penalties related to salary-cap circumvention. The Clippers and owner Steve Ballmer have denied wrongdoing. Leonard has said he had no knowledge of any intent to circumvent the salary cap.
For Flagrant Desk’s entirely fictional administrative purposes, however, the development represents a major change in Leonard’s status: his re-evaluation has now reached the federal level.
“Historically, Kawhi’s re-evaluations have been handled by doctors, trainers and basketball operations,” an entirely fictional league administrator said. “This one apparently requires people with subpoena power.”
Under a fictional four-tier framework obtained by nobody, Leonard’s previous reviews had remained within Levels 1 through 3: medical re-evaluation, organizational re-evaluation and independent league re-evaluation. Level 4, labeled “Outside Agency Review,” had previously been considered theoretical.
League personnel are now imaginary-monitoring whether the federal process can run concurrently with Leonard’s existing basketball-related evaluation schedule. One fictional internal dashboard reportedly includes separate columns for “availability,” “league status,” “federal status” and “date of next re-evaluation,” with the final column currently displaying the phrase “to be determined following review.”
The Clippers are not expected to place Leonard on any official injury report because of the federal inquiry, although Flagrant Desk understands the situation has created an entirely new category of status update: questionable — administrative.
Sources with no actual knowledge of Justice Department procedure said the team is preparing for a range of outcomes, including additional document requests, further interviews and the possibility that someone will eventually issue a statement containing the words “ongoing matter” at least three times.
The NBA, meanwhile, must now decide whether its own review is considered complete, temporarily complete or complete pending the outcome of another review. League staff are said to be particularly concerned about the possibility of two separate investigations reaching the re-evaluation stage simultaneously, a scenario not contemplated by the current collective bargaining agreement or any known medical protocol.
Leonard’s basketball status remains independent of the reported federal investigation, but that has not stopped fictional team officials from considering whether all future updates should simply be consolidated into one weekly bulletin covering health, roster availability, league discipline and federal jurisdiction.
“At some point you want one document,” the fictional administrator said. “Right now Kawhi has more parallel review processes than most infrastructure projects.”
No timetable exists for the federal inquiry, and federal authorities have not announced any role in determining Leonard’s availability for basketball. Flagrant Desk will continue to re-evaluate the situation following the next available re-evaluation.