Good morning! The Clippers are not going quietly. Twenty-four hours after losing five first-round picks, $30 million and their owner for a year, the franchise announced it will contest all of it — and Eric Lambkins II responded with the best column anyone has written on this scandal. Elsewhere: Teoscar Hernández walked off the Cardinals to avoid a sweep, Shohei Ohtani is day-to-day, and the Rams are staying home while San Francisco flies to Melbourne early. Let’s get into it.
🚨 HEADLINES
🏀 They’re fighting it. The Clippers call the NBA investigation biased; Lambkins is unmoved — Eric Lambkins II at Intuit Dome.
⚾ Walk-off. Teoscar Hernández’s two-run double in the ninth beat St. Louis 3-2 — Fredo Cervantes at Dodger Stadium.
⚾ Day-to-day. The Dodgers say an IL stint for Ohtani is unlikely — Fredo Cervantes at Dodger Stadium.
🏈 Different flight plans. The 49ers left early for Melbourne. The Rams didn’t — The Sporting Tribune at Rams Village.
⚾ Farm report. Anthony Arroyo ranks the top 10 prospects in both Los Angeles organizations — Anthony Arroyo.
See what else is trending at The Sporting Tribune.
📋 SCOREBOARD — THURSDAY
⚾ MLB: Dodgers 3, Cardinals 2
🏀 “USUALLY, THERE’S A WITCH”
The Clippers responded to the largest fine in NBA history by refusing to accept it. The franchise called Wachtell Lipton’s work “a heavily biased investigation seeking to justify a predetermined narrative” and said it will “vigorously challenge these findings and penalties through every avenue available.” Ballmer’s attorney, David Kelley, called it a witch hunt.
Eric Lambkins II’s reply is the line of the week: “Here’s the thing about witch hunts: usually, there’s a witch.”
His column is the best thing published on this scandal, and the reason is that he refuses to treat it as a compliance story. He treats it as a Los Angeles story. Forty years as the constellation nobody could find. Blake Griffin over a Kia. Lob City. Surviving Donald Sterling. And then, desperate to finally matter, handing the franchise to a man who treated the regular season like a suggestion box.
The arithmetic he lands on is brutal: in seven seasons, Kawhi Leonard’s Clippers won four playoff series. Leonard won four in one season in Toronto. They never reached a Finals. In 2026 they lost in the Play-In.
Then there’s the number nobody had before: the Aspiration endorsement deal at the center of the case was worth $28 million, from a company that has since gone bankrupt.
Lambkins’s argument for what comes next is the part your group chat will fight about. Tank, build the best scouting and development pipeline money can buy, and then — in 2034, when the picks come back — weaponize the one asset no other franchise has. Forbes puts Ballmer at $126 billion, Bloomberg at $145 billion. The $30 million fine, Lambkins calculates, is the equivalent of a $41 ticket for the average American.
“The NBA has salary caps. The NBA has tax aprons. The NBA has penalties, fines and suspensions,” he writes. “But the NBA does not have a Steve Ballmer.”
GO DEEPER
› Eric Lambkins II: The Clippers wrote their own ransom note — and the NBA just collected (The Sporting Tribune)
⚾ EIGHT WALK-OFFS
The Dodgers had lost two straight at home and were an out from a sweep. Then Tommy Edman singled and stole second, Mookie Betts walked, and Teoscar Hernández drove a 3-2 pitch into center field for a two-run double that ended it, 3-2.
It was the Dodgers’ eighth walk-off win of the season and it salvaged a homestand that had been going badly since Tuesday. Fredo Cervantes was there.
Separately, Cervantes reports Shohei Ohtani remains day-to-day, with the club saying an injured list stint is unlikely. In a September where the rotation has already lost Roki Sasaki to a blister, “unlikely” is doing a lot of work.
The Nationals come in tonight.
GO DEEPER
› Fredo Cervantes: Teoscar Hernández’s walk-off hit lifts Dodgers over Cardinals (The Sporting Tribune)
› Fredo Cervantes: Shohei Ohtani remains day-to-day, Dodgers say IL stint unlikely (The Sporting Tribune)
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🏈 TWO DIFFERENT FLIGHT PLANS
San Francisco left for Melbourne early. The Rams are staying home and flying later, and our staff reports the split thinking from Rams Village. It is one of the more interesting sub-plots of a genuinely strange Week 1: two teams, one 16-hour flight, opposite theories about how to arrive.
Kickoff in Australia is a week from today.
GO DEEPER
› The Sporting Tribune: Rams stay home while 49ers head Down Under early for historic Melbourne opener (The Sporting Tribune)
⚾ THE FARM, RANKED
With the Angels sold, the Padres promoting Ethan Salas and the Dodgers thin on arms, Anthony Arroyo picked a good week to rank the top 10 prospects in both Los Angeles systems. Anaheim’s farm has climbed from the bottom of the league to the middle of the pack since the deadline sell-off — which is now Stan Kroenke’s inheritance.
GO DEEPER
› Anthony Arroyo: Angels, Dodgers — ranking the top 10 prospects in each organization (The Sporting Tribune)
📺 WATCHLIST — FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 4
⚾ MLB: Angels at Pirates — 3:40 p.m. — ABTV
🏈 College: Fresno State at USC — Coliseum — 6:00 p.m. — FOX
⚾ MLB: Yankees at Padres — Petco Park — 6:40 p.m. — Padres TV
⚾ MLB: Nationals at Dodgers — Dodger Stadium — 7:10 p.m. — SNLA
🎟️ GOING TO A GAME?
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🌴 TST TRIVIA
Kawhi Leonard won four playoff series in seven seasons with the Clippers. How many did he win in his single season in Toronto?
Answer at the bottom.
🎧 THE SPORTING TRIBUNE TODAY
The Sporting Tribune Today airs weekdays at 7 a.m. and 11 a.m. ET on SportsGrid, hosted by Grant Mona and John Browner and built on reporting from our staff across Southern California, Las Vegas and Hawai’i. Our stories, photos and columns also run on SportsGrid’s website and app.
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Today’s episode: the Clippers fight the NBA’s ruling and what an appeal actually looks like, Teoscar Hernández’s eighth walk-off of the season, and a Rams team taking the long way to Australia.
› Listen to the latest episode
Trivia answer: Four — the same number, in one season, on the way to a championship.
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