How hard did the NBA hit the Clippers? Here's how other recent cheating scandals have been handled

And what a hammer it was. The league has stripped the Clippers of five first-round draft picks, fined owner Steve Ballmer $30 million, fined Leonard $700,000 and suspended Ballmer, president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank and president of business operations Gillian Zucker.

It is a team-changing blow to LA, which many have noted also gave up five first-rounders, two pick swaps and future MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander in a trade for Paul George at Leonard's request.

The Clippers have already released a statement rejecting the NBA's findings and promising to challenge them . It remains to be seen how that will play out, but the NBA has certainly thrown down a harsh first move.

But how harsh is it compared to other cheating scandals in recent sports history? Let's compare the Clippers' sanctions to the bites other teams have received for bending the rules for a competitive advantage in recent sports history, which we are cutting off at the year 2000.

Note: This is purely a comparison of penalties for team cheating scandals. We will not be including any stories involving actual crimes (e.g. the Penn State scandal) nor cases of individual athletes being punished (e.g. Lance Armstrong).

The scandal: Former Astros pitcher Mike Fiers blew the whistle on the 2017 World Series champions using a live camera feed and a trash can to relay pitch signals to batters in real time. An MLB investigation followed, in which Astros players were offered immunity in exchange for honesty and confirmed the depth of the scheme, which included cheating in the Fall Classic.

The penalty: The Astros were fined $5 million, the maximum allowed by MLB and stripped of the first- and second-round picks in the 2020 and 2021 MLB drafts. General manager Jeff Luhnow, manager A.J. Hinch and 2017 bench coach Alex Cora were all suspended a full season. Carlos Beltran, one of the ringleaders of the scheme, also left his new job as manager of the New York Mets in the aftermath.

The Astros were allowed to keep the 2017 title, which remains one of the more tainted achievements in sports history.

The scandal : With in-person advance scouting against NCAA rules, Michigan staffer Connor Stalions devised a scheme where people would attend the games of future Michigan opponents in an attempt to decipher their signals. Stalions — who was even on the Central Michigan sideline in CMU gear in 2023 when the Chippewas played Michigan State — booked tickets to numerous teams that Michigan did and could play across multiple seasons. When the Big Ten's investigation into Stalions' scheme became public in October of 2023, then-Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh denied that he knew what was happening and said he had not "directed any staff member or others to participate in an off-campus scouting assignment."

The penalty : Less than two weeks after Stalions was suspended, he parted ways with Michigan. Harbaugh was suspended for the final three games of the 2023 regular season by the Big Ten, but returned for Michigan's conference title game win. The Wolverines then went on to win the College Football Playoff to cap a 15-0 season.

Harbaugh left for the Los Angeles Chargers after the season was over. In August of 2025, the NCAA formally punished the school, Harbaugh and others. Michigan was fined its postseason revenue sharing for the 2025 and 2026 seasons among myriad penalties, Harbaugh received a 10-year show-cause penalty and Stalions got an eight-year show-cause. Sherrone Moore, Harbaugh's successor and offensive coordinator for the 2023 team, was given an additional one-game suspension and a two-year show-cause.

The scandal : During the 2007 season, the New York Jets accused the New England Patriots of illegally filming their defensive signals during a game. The Patriots were later alleged to have been videotaping opposing coaches since Belichick was hired in 2000, a span of time including three Super Bowl titles. Belichick painted the matter as a differing interpretation of the rules — it wasn't specifically illegal to tape opposing coaches — but NFL commissioner Roger Goodell disagreed.

The penalty : The NFL fined Belichick $500,000, the Patriots $250,000 and stripped the team of its first-round pick in the 2008 NFL Draft.

The scandal : We're back on the Patriots, who blew out the Indianapolis Colts in the 2014 AFC championship game before winning Super Bowl XLIX. During that game, the Colts flagged that a ball intercepted from Tom Brady was noticeably deflated. An NFL investigation ensued and ultimately determined the Patriots had deliberately deflated balls at Brady's request. Nearly every development of this scandal was vociferously challenged by the Patriots.

The penalty : The NFL fined the Patriots $1 million and docked them their first-round pick in the 2016 NFL Draft and their fourth-round pick in the 2017 NFL Draft. It also suspended Brady four games without pay to open the 2015 season, which Brady had struck down in court only for it to be reinstated for the 2016 season.

The scandal : St. Louis Cardinals director of scouting Chris Correa was caught hacking the internal database of the Astros, using the accounts of former co-workers who helped build that database after leaving St. Louis for Houston. Correa, who was found to have acted alone, claimed he did it because he suspected the Astros of hacking the Cardinals.

The penalty : MLB ordered the Cardinals to pay $2 million to the Astros, as well as surrender their two highest picks in the 2017 MLB Draft to them. Correa was banned from baseball and sentenced to 46 months in prison after pleading guilty to five counts of unauthorized access of a protected computer.

The scandal : The Dolphins dreamed of pairing Brady with head coach Sean Payton. Unfortunately, both men were respectively under contract with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and New Orleans Saints. They were eventually found to have had impermissible contract with Brady and his agent Don Yee, who also represents Payton.

The penalty : The NFL docked the Dolphins a 2023 first-round pick and 2024 third-round pick, hit team owner Stephen Ross with a $1.5 million fine and six-game suspension and hit vice chairman Bruce Beal with $500,000 fine and year-long suspension.

The scandal : In late 2010, Buckeyes Mike Adams, Boom Herron, Devier Posey, Terrelle Pryor and Solomon Thomas were accused of receiving improper benefits from a Columbus tattoo parlor and suspended for the first five games of the 2011 season. As the owner of the tattoo parlor was under investigation for felony drug trafficking, Ohio State players were mentioned by the Department of Justice as trading memorabilia for tattoos or cash. Then-Ohio State coach Jim Tressel was given a heads up about the investigation via a confidential tip, and did not notify anyone else at Ohio State.

The penalty: Months after Tressel's emails became public and he said that he was trying to protect his players, he was suspended for two games and fined by Ohio State. The NCAA then accused him of potentially committing major violations.

In May of 2011, Tressel resigned as Ohio State's coach. In July, the NCAA vacated all of Ohio State's wins from the 2010 season and gave the Buckeyes a postseason ban for the 2012 season. Pryor, who was set to be a senior in 2011, instead declared for the NFL Draft. Current Wisconsin coach Luke Fickell served as Ohio State's interim coach in 2011 as the Buckeyes went 6-7. Ohio State hired Urban Meyer for the 2012 season after he spent 2011 as a TV analyst. Ohio State went undefeated in Meyer's first season and finished at No. 3 in the AP poll.

The scandal : After Reggie Bush won the 2005 Heisman Trophy at USC and was the No. 3 pick in the 2006 NFL Draft, Yahoo Sports reported after an eight-month investigation that Bush and his family had accepted benefits worth more than $100,000 from agents. Remember, the NCAA's amateurism rules were far different in 2005. A previous Yahoo Sports report about Bush's family's living arrangements led to the start of an NCAA investigation in April.

In the years after the Bush investigation began, the NCAA also began an investigation into benefits given to basketball player O.J. Mayo. The two investigations then became an all-encompassing one into USC's athletic department.

The penalty : USC, which won the BCS title at the end of the 2004 season, vacated the final two games of that season and every win it had in 2005. That BCS title was officially stripped in 2011. The program also received a two-year bowl ban in 2010 and 2011 along with significant scholarship reductions, as the NCAA's investigation took years to complete.

Bush also gave up his Heisman Trophy and the award for the 2005 season had been vacant for years. In 2024, the NCAA returned the trophy to Bush and reinstated him as the winner. Four years earlier, USC announced that it had ended its disassociation with Bush.

The scandal : There are no other doping cases on this list because those are largely treated as individual offenses. Russia is included because that really was a country's sporting arm engaging in rampant, state-sponsored doping for years and going to astonishing lengths to hide it from the authorities.

The penalty : In addition to dozens of athletes banned and medals stripped, the Russian flag has not been a common sight at the Olympics for years, due to both the doping scandal and its invasion of Ukraine.

The World Anti-Doping Agency hit the country with a four-year ban from international sports in 2019, while allowing individually cleared athletes to compete under a neutral banner. Russia appealed the decision with the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which both halved the ban to two years and further weakened some of the penalties.