From a team-building perspective, the most ruinous element of the NBA's punishment of the LA Clippers for salary cap circumvention surrounding Kawhi Leonard is the loss of five first-round draft picks, one each in 2029, 2030, 2031, 2032 and 2033.
There is only one precedent for such a serious punishment in NBA history: when the league similarly revoked five first-round picks from the Minnesota Timberwolves in 2000 for salary cap circumvention. In that case, the Timberwolves had come to an illegal agreement with free agent big man Joe Smith. (Then-commissioner David Stern ultimately returned two of the first-round picks.)
Looking back at how Minnesota navigated -- and suffered from -- that forfeiture can help inform our understanding of how the Clippers might fare in the years to come, as they bear the brunt of the NBA's discipline.
Minnesota's precedent
For the Timberwolves, the turn of the millennium was a terrible time to suffer such a drastic punishment. They'd been the NBA's worst team for years after joining as an expansion franchise in 1989; for the first seven years of their existence, they never won more than 29 games in a season.
But in 1995, they drafted high schooler Kevin Garnett with the No. 5 pick, and their trajectory finally started to improve. The Timberwolves won 21 games in 1994-95, the season before Garnett was drafted, but steadily rose to 50 wins by 1999-00.