Has the PBA ever punished a team for a salary cap violation?

THE NBA ground is probably still shaking as we speak, judging from how hard Adam Silver and the Commissioner's Office came down on the Los Angeles Clippers over salary cap violations in signing Kawhi Leonard to a contract.

On Friday, the NBA announced it has found the Clippers organization guilty of circumventing the league's salary cap rule when Leonard was signed to endorsement deals by companies doing business with the team, purportedly to augment the star player's compensation beyond what the rules allowed.

* The Clippers organization was fined $30 million and stripped of five first-round picks in the 2029, 2030, 2031, 2032, and 2033 NBA Drafts.

* LA Clippers owner Steve Balmer, recognized as the richest owner in American pro sports, was suspended from all league activities for one year.

* The Clippers President of Business Operations Gillian Zucker was suspended for one year without pay.

* The Clippers President of Basketball Operations Lawrence Frank was suspended for six months without pay.

* Kawhi Leonard was ordered to pay the league $700,000 while Dennis Robertson, his uncle who stood as his business manager through much of his pro career, was banned from conducting business within the NBA for five years.

The decisiveness of the NBA's action and its commitment to get to the bottom of the issue hiring a law firm to conduct an independent investigation got us to wonder if our own PBA is close to being serious in enforcing its own salary cap rules?

"Nope," said one league insider who admit that for decades, PBA teams have treated the salary-cap rule as more of a suggestion than a hard rule while officials let things slide.

"The PBA looks the other way rather than really pursue it," the insider added.

In fact, the last - and most likely the only time - a PBA team was ever punished for a salary-cap violation happened more than two decades ago, back in 2001 during the late commissioner Jun Bernardino's time in charge.

According to former league officials, hard evidence of under-the-table deals provided by former PBA player Jayvee Gayoso led to the pro league sanctioning the Tanduay Rhum Masters for circumventing the salary-cap rule.

Based on the bank documents presented during a probe, Gayoso got two pay cheques a month from the team in the 1999 and 2000 seasons - one from the official Uniform Players Contract, the other for a 'side deal' he signed with the ballclub.

The punishment? Tanduay, under the league's salary-cap rules, was stripped of its share in the PBA's television revenue which run up to the millions at that time, a league insider bared.

But instead of opening a can of worms, the issue turned out to be a one-off.

Curiously, no PBA team has ever been charged, much less convicted, of a salary cap violation since then - even with the league rules offering a massive bonus for a whistleblower in case of a conviction.

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