In Sept. 2025, a serious investigation by former Senior Writer for ESPN Magazine Pablo Torre came out on his podcast “Pablo Torre Finds Out.” Torre was investigating the Los Angeles Clippers for circumventing the NBA’s salary cap to pay their star player Kawhi Leonard extra money under the table beyond his NBA contract.
Torre said that the Clippers owner Steve Ballmer, the richest sports owner in the world worth $175 billion, created a deal through a green banking company called Aspiration to pay Leonard an extra $28 million in a “no-show” endorsement deal. The deal made it so Leonard doesn’t have to do anything for the company but still gets paid the money. This deal was made in order to ensure Leonard would stay with the organization while circumventing the salary cap.
Senior NBA Insider Shams Charania shared on X, “NBA spokesman Mike Bass tells ESPN: ‘We are aware of this morning’s media report regarding the LA Clippers and are commencing an investigation.’” The Clippers immediately issued a statement regarding the Aspiration allegations and emphasized, “Neither the Clippers nor Ballmer circumvented the salary cap. The notion that [Ballmer] invested [$50 million] in Aspiration in order to funnel money to [Leonard] is absurd … There is nothing unusual or untoward about team sponsors doing endorsement deals with players on the same team. Neither [Ballmer] nor the Clippers organization had any oversight of [Leonard’s] independent endorsement agreement with Aspiration. To say otherwise is flat-out wrong.”
The NBA then launched a formal investigation with an independent law firm to find out whether Ballmer and the Clippers actually circumvented the salary cap. During this nearly year-long investigation, the Clippers made a trade with the Toronto Raptors on July 30, 2026 that would send Leonard to Toronto. This raised a lot of questions for the NBA as they were still investigating the potential salary cap circumvention that included Leonard and the Clippers organization. Some questions raised across the NBA were the following: Will this trade go through? Why would the Clippers make this deal during an ongoing investigation? If the Clippers are found guilty, will Leonard get punished as well?
Those questions would eventually be answered nearly a year later on Sept. 2, 2026. Charania then reported, “The NBA has ruled on the Los Angeles Clippers in for salary cap circumvention investigations on Kawhi Leonard after a yearlong probe.”
The Clippers’ final punishment included forfeiting five first round picks from 2029 to 2033 really restricting the team’s future. Along with that Ballmer will be paying a $30 million fine along with being suspended for a year from any league- and team-related activities. Team President of Business Operations Gillian Zucker will also be suspended for a year without pay and President of Basketball Operations Lawrence Frank will be suspended six months without pay. Finally, Leonard was fined $700,000 and his uncle and agent Dennis Robertson was also banned from doing anything NBA-related for five years.
Following the punishments Leonard ended up making a statement from his new agent Harrison Gaines: “Integrity and respect for this game are fundamental to who I am. I accept full responsibility for lapses in judgment by people within my inner circle … I entered into my contract with the Clippers as well as the agreements in question in good faith … with no knowledge of any intent on anyone’s part to circumvent the salary cap. For 15 years, my priority has been giving everything to … those I share the court with. As I return to Toronto, I am … closing this chapter and moving forward with a clean slate.”
With young players and a few all-star level talents, this begs the question: Will the Clippers be able to bounce back from this extreme punishment or will they be at the bottom of the standings for the next seven years?
