Steve Ballmer has made another notable change in the aftermath of the NBA’s salary-cap circumvention investigation into the Los Angeles Clippers and Kawhi Leonard.
According to Front Office Sports, Ballmer is no longer actively working with attorney David Kelley or the law firm O’Melveny & Myers, the legal team that issued an aggressive response to the NBA’s findings last month. Kelley had signed a September 2 letter to commissioner Adam Silver calling the league’s investigation a “witch hunt” and describing its conclusions as “baseless.”
At the time, Ballmer and the Clippers appeared prepared to challenge the league’s punishment. The NBA had fined the franchise $30 million, stripped it of five first-round draft picks, suspended Ballmer for one year and imposed additional penalties on team executives and Leonard after concluding that the Clippers had improperly helped facilitate off-court compensation opportunities for Leonard.
Kelley’s letter accused the league of conducting a fundamentally unfair investigation and said Ballmer was exploring legal remedies. That stance did not last.
Roughly two weeks later, Ballmer publicly accepted the NBA’s punishment and apologized to fans, employees and fellow owners, while acknowledging that disagreements with parts of the investigation remained.
Now his legal representation has shifted as well. *Front Office Sports* reports that Simpson Thacher partner Rafi Prober is serving as Ballmer’s primary attorney for general legal matters, with Bill Burck of Quinn Emanuel also involved. O’Melveny remains listed in a separate lawsuit connected to Aspiration founder Joseph Sanberg, but multiple sources told FOS that Ballmer is no longer actively working with Kelley.
