Steve Ballmer paid a billionaire’s ransom for the Los Angeles Clippers, paid for his own stadium and deeply cares about his basketball team, and that’s what we want from sports owners, isn’t it? The Clippers were always a queasy sort of joke and then came Ballmer, standing astride a league of lesser billionaires. He’s what every team’s fan base should want, and what every owner should want to be.

But as often happens Ballmer’s strengths have become weaknesses, and he is now the NBA’s biggest problem. He is the human fork in the road for the league, for the other owners and for commissioner Adam Silver himself. Silver keeps saying that this is about the integrity of the league. But it’s about the commissioner’s integrity, too.

Because if Silver can’t deliver a hammer-of-god punishme

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