It has been about three and a half months since Pablo Torre first presented evidence that Steve Ballmer and the Los Angeles Clippers allegedly used a fraudulent tree-planting company to pay Kawhi Leonard and circumvent the NBA salary cap. There have since been some more stories about Leonard's no-show deal with Aspriation and his uncle's history of asking teams for that exact type of deal reported by Torre and others.

On Bill Simmons's latest podcast with Zach Lowe, The Ringer founder revealed that he had heard some whispers that we would finally hear what the NBA was going to do about it very soon. Or at least you'll hear about it if you're not too busy with your holiday plans.

"There's some whispers that this is the Ballmer punishment," Simmons said . "Just be ready for a holiday news drop on that one. Some whispers. Like a Friday 5:30, day after Christmas type of situation. They have to get something out as we're getting closer to the All-Star game now, that the Clippers are hosting. They cannot go into the All-Star game without having announced what happened. And I think we're moving closer to finding out what the punishment will be. If there will be a punishment."

A Friday, Dec. 26 news dump would be an interesting move considering the Clippers actually play a game on Amazon Prime that very night. This news will be impossible to truly bury. There are still three-plus months remaining in the regular season and as Simmons mentioned the team is hosting the All-Star game. There is no escaping this story, which is good because it's a pretty interesting story.

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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Bill Simmons Has Heard ‘Whispers’ of Steve Ballmer, Clippers Punishment Announcement.

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