Kenny Smith Says NBA's Clippers' Punishment Is Appropriate, They Cheated

Kenny Smith admits the NBA went straight for the Clippers' neck, but he doesn't think the punishment was excessive ... when you consider Steve Ballmer's team skirted the rules in a major way!

TMZ Sports spotted the hooper-turned-analyst at LAX on Friday, and asked him whether The Association went too hard.

"You're gonna have to suffer consequences for that kind of behavior," Smith told us.

"You're vehemently cheating. You're not just toeing the line. You're actually cheating and you're cheating at a high level. You're circumventing the salary cap. You're giving yourself an unfair advantage that no one else has, and you have to have severe penalties for that or other people will say, 'Well we can do it.'"

With that said, did the NBA go too light on the team? Kenny doesn't think so.

"It's gonna cripple their franchise possibly for the next five to seven years," Smith said, adding, "You take away five years of draft picks, that's your core of how you develop your team. So yeah, it's definitely tough."

First-rounders aside, Ballmer's team was also fined $30 million, and the owner was suspended for an entire season ... as were several other execs.

The only one who wasn't hit hard -- at least that's the consensus -- was Kawhi Leonard, the star player at the center of the controversy.

The future Hall of Famer will have to pay a $700K fine ... which is an insane amount of money until you realize KL makes that in just over one game.

Leonard won't be suspended.

Kenny has a theory as to why the NBA took a pass on hitting Kawhi hard.