Circumstantial Evidence Might Not Doom Clippers In Kawhi Leonard Scandal

Evidence continues to mount regarding alleged salary-cap circumvention involving Los Angeles Clippers star Kawhi Leonard.

Pablo Torre first broke the story on his Pablo Torre Finds Out podcast, revealing that Leonard had a four-year, $28 million endorsement deal with a now-bankrupt environmental company that didn’t actually require him to do anything. One former employee told Torre that it was designed “to circumvent the salary cap,” a charge which the Clippers have firmly denied. However, months before Leonard signed his deal with Aspiration, Clippers governor Steve Ballmer made a $50 million investment into Aspiration.

Andrei Cherny, Aspiration’s co-founder and former CEO, denied that Leonard’s endorsement deal was a “no-show contract.” He also said that “in the months of discussion among our executives before signing the sponsorship,” he didn’t “remember conversations about the NBA salary cap.” However, the allegations are explosive enough that the NBA has hired the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to fully investigate.

If the NBA determines that the Clippers did intentionally circumvent the salary cap by investing in Aspiration and redirecting most of that money to Leonard, they could face steep penalties including the loss of draft picks, suspension of team executives and even the voiding of Leonard’s contract. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver made clear last week that he isn’t ready to jump to conclusions yet, though.

“The burden is on the league if we’re going to discipline a team, an owner, a player or any constituent members of the league,” Silver told reporters after an NBA board of governors meeting last week. “I think as with any process that requires a fundamental sense of fairness, the burden should be on the party that is, in essence, bringing those charges.”

The exact wording of the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement might help spare the Clippers in this investigation, particularly if more circumstantial evidence emerges.

Evidence Continues To Mount About Potential Circumvention

Since Torre’s initial report, more details have emerged about Leonard’s relationship with Aspiration along with the involvement of Ballmer and others affiliated with the Clippers organization. John Karalis of Boston Sports Journal reported that Leonard also “cut a side deal” for an additional $20 million in company stock, which Torre later confirmed. Bruce Arthur of the Toronto Star reported that when Leonard was a free agent in 2019, his “uncle and representative, Dennis Robertson, made demands that line up almost perfectly with what Leonard reportedly got from Aspiration.”

That’s not all. Torre later reported that Dennis Wong, a Clippers minority owner who was Ballmer’s college roommate, invested $1.99 million in Aspiration in December 2022. Nine days later, Aspiration made its quarterly $1.75 million payment to Leonard while laying off 20 percent of its employees, according to a former company employee. And on Friday, Mike Vorkunov of The Athletic reported Ballmer invested an additional $10 million into Aspiration in March 2023 as the company “was hemorrhaging cash, laying off employees and struggling to raise funds.”

Ballmer told ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne that Aspiration “conned” him with “primarily fraudulent financials.” That could explain why he made that type of an investment, particularly as Aspiration was already starting to go under. However, the timing of Wong and Ballmer’s investments—and the urgency that Aspiration reportedly felt to continue paying Leonard even as the rest of the business crumbled—raises eyebrows.

The section of the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement dealing with salary-cap circumvention does allow the commissioner to punish teams based on “direct or circumstantial evidence” in certain circumstances. The question is whether the allegations raised by Torre and others fit cleanly into that category.

Was Aspiration A ‘Team Affiliate’ Of The Clippers?

The CBA defines two types of circumvention: those between a player and a team or “team affiliate,” and those between a team and a sponsor, business partner or a third party. It defines a “team affiliate” as any individual or entity which “holds an ownership interest in a team” or any entity that a team owner holds “more than 5% of its ownership interests.”

That might be the clause that spares the Clippers from a death penalty-level punishment.

During his interview with Shelburne, Ballmer specifically noted he had “no control” over Aspiration and owned less than 3% of it. That might have been his subtle attempt to sway the NBA from considering Aspiration a “team affiliate,” which would spare the Clippers from the most severe punishments allowable by the CBA.

If Aspiration did count as a team affiliate—or if the NBA determines that Ballmer and his co-owners invested in Aspiration to reroute money to Leonard—it could strip the Clippers of multiple draft picks, fine Ballmer up to $7.5 million, potentially void Leonard’s contract and hand one-year suspensions to any executives who participated in the scheme. Otherwise, the league could only fine the Clippers up to $5.5 million—since this would be their second offense—strip one first-round pick and potentially void Leonard’s contract.

After the recent board of governors meeting, Silver made it clear that circumstantial evidence might not be enough on its own to merit a punishment.

“In the case of the league, we and our investigators look at the totality of the evidence,” Silver said. “I think whether mere appearance, just by the way those words read, as a matter of fundamental fairness, I would be reluctant to act if there was a mere appearance of impropriety. I think the goal of a full investigation is to find out if there really was impropriety.

“In a public-facing sport, the public at times reaches conclusions that later turn out to be completely false. I would want anybody else in the situation Mr. Ballmer is in now—or Kawhi Leonard, for that matter—to be treated the same way I would want to be treated if people were making allegations against me. We’re not a court of law at the end of the day, either. We have broad authority to look at all information and to weigh it accordingly.”

The steady trickle of reports is forming a mountain of damning evidence. However, it’s still unclear whether that’s enough for the Clippers to face the most severe punishments that Silver can hand out for salary-cap circumvention.

If the NBA finds a written agreement between the Clippers and Aspiration like the secret contract that Joe Smith signed with the Minnesota Timberwolves in the late 1990s, Silver will likely lay down the full hammer. But if the NBA can’t definitively prove that Ballmer and his Clippers co-owners invested in Aspiration with the express purpose of funneling additional money to Leonard, they might be spared from Silver’s full wrath.

Unless otherwise noted, all stats via NBA.com, PBPStats, Cleaning the Glass or Basketball Reference. All salary information via Spotrac and salary-cap information via RealGM. All odds via FanDuel Sportsbook.

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