The Los Angeles Clippers and Kawhi Leonard Salary Scandal
Alexander Fry
Staff Writer
The Los Angeles Clippers and Kawhi Leonard Salary Scandal
If you’ve been following the NBA offseason, chances are you’ve heard of the recent scandal developing regarding the Los Angeles Clippers and their star player Kawhi Leonard. There’s a lot of moving parts to the scandal, but it’s been brought to the limelight due to podcaster Pablo Torre’s investigation into a fraudulent company the Clippers were partnered with called Aspiration. Aspiration is important as in April of 2022, Kawhi Leonard agreed to a $28 million endorsement deal with them. The Clippers themselves had a sponsorship deal with Aspiration, and that partnership ended after the 2022-23 NBA season due to Aspiration defaulting on their obligations. Aspiration eventually filed for bankruptcy, and in August of 2025, the owner Joe Sanberg pleaded guilty to fraud, as he raised over $300 million from investors through a fraudulent scheme.
What Aspiration was supposed to be was an environmentally conscious digital bank, with the goal to put investments and deposits into companies that avoided fossil fuels. It is now clear the company was not entirely used for this, as the owner was arrested for conspiring to defraud an investment fund of $145 million.
How Are The Clippers Involved? What’s The Problem?
Now that the background to Aspiration has been established, you may wonder how the Clippers are involved. It begins in 2021, when Kawhi signed a “team-friendly” contract with the Clippers. He opted not to max out his contract, partially due to other star contracts on the team like that of Paul George. The same year (2021), the Clippers partnered with the climate conscious group Aspiration, and in April of 2022 Kawhi signed his $28 million deal with Aspiration. The reason the Clippers are in hot water is due to potentially circumventing the NBA salary cap through a series of payments and investments that Steve Ballmer (the Clippers owner) and other associates made in Aspiration, with these payments coinciding with sponsorship payouts Kawhi Leonard received. Ballmer initially invested $50 million in Aspiration, putting in an additional $10 million when the company began struggling. While these investments are normal, Pablo Torre – the investigative podcaster – found suspicious activity, as the Clippers vice chairman Dennis Wong invested $1.99 million in Aspiration, with this being followed by a $1.75 million payout to Kawhi Leonard. Under the NBA’s current Collective Bargaining Agreement (aka the NBA Constitution), this would be considered a form of avoiding the salary cap, which is not permitted. Additionally, when Kawhi Leonard signed his contract with Aspiration he was given $20 million in equity via shares from Aspiration, and I’ll go over that specific deal shortly.
Mark Cuban, the former owner of the Dallas Mavericks, was openly critical of the evidence that Pablo Torre has presented thus far, stating that there wasn’t enough evidence to punish Ballmer for these accusations. He said that if Ballmer were to circumvent the salary cap through Aspiration, he would do it by purchasing carbon credits, which companies allegedly use to offset their emissions. Funnily enough, Pablo Torre investigated this possibility and found that Steve Ballmer sent $32.4 million in carbon credits the same day Kawhi signed his $28 million sponsorship deal with Aspiration. While there is still not enough evidence for the NBA to punish the Clippers, they’ve launched an investigation, and Pablo Torre’s independent investigation is getting closer to the smoking gun of the Clippers’ salary cap evasion.
How Is Kawhi Leonard Involved?
Kawhi Leonard is a man of very few words. He’s not outgoing and his indifference towards media and quiet demeanor make him one of the NBA’s more elusive and mysterious superstars. However, Kawhi and his team are not free of blame in this situation, as there has been a lot of suspicious activity regarding his contract negotiations.
First, I’ll go over his no-show deal with Aspiration. As a part of his deal for $20 million in equity with Aspiration, he bound himself to a contract where Aspiration would require certain things from him, like one eight-hour day of production and appearances on Coach Lue’s podcast. However, Kawhi could reject any actions required of him if they “weren’t consistent with his beliefs,” meaning that he could technically do nothing and still be paid the full amount. The former CEO and co-founder of Aspiration, Andrei Cherny, stated that Aspiration could’ve terminated the contract whenever they wanted, rejecting the claim that Kawhi was signed to a no-show contract. While sponsorship deals are not illegal under the CBA, if the deal is found to be related to salary cap circumvention, the Clippers and Kawhi Leonard could be in trouble.
Furthermore, Kawhi Leonard’s contract situation with the Clippers and Aspiration aligns with certain requests his camp made of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment when he looked to re-sign with the Toronto Raptors. Dennis Robertson, Kawhi’s uncle and representative, was seeking benefits that lie outside of the salary cap when in negotiations with the Toronto Raptors. While not all of these requests were illegal under the CBA in 2019, some raised red flags. Robertson requested from the Toronto Raptors:
– A trade for Paul George (which in 2019 was allowed under the CBA).
– A slice of ownership in the Toronto Maple Leafs NHL team (not possible or allowed).
– Ownership stakes in outside companies the MLSE had relationships with (not allowed).
– Match an extra $10 million a year in extra sponsorship income (which isn’t allowed as teams cannot negotiate deals with team sponsors for players).
MLSE rejected the requests that were not possible, but they offered to connect Kawhi and his team with Toronto companies as they would’ve been glad to have him as a spokesperson. Kawhi’s camp responded to this by saying that they “don’t want to do anything”, and the MLSE rightfully interpreted this as Kawhi requesting no-show contracts, and negotiations faltered after that.
Additionally, when negotiating with the Clippers and other teams, Robertson had a plethora of requests, like skipping media events, a house, access to a private plane, guaranteed off-court endorsement money, market Leonard individually, and bringing some of Kawhi’s own people into the organization. Most of these requests the Clippers agreed to, but a team source disputes some of these claims and Ballmer himself rejects the idea that his involvement with Aspiration was for the purpose of circumventing the salary cap.
The Owner’s Stance and The Future of The Investigation
Steve Ballmer has been consistent in rejecting any claims made that he was involved in evading the salary cap via Aspiration. Ballmer denies he had any knowledge of Kawhi’s no-show endorsement contract and claims he was also duped by Aspiration as the Clippers-Aspiration sponsorship deal fell through in 2023. Ballmer has also notably distanced himself from Kawhi during this scandal, stating that “Kawhi’s business is Kawhi’s business.” As of right now, Kawhi Leonard and his camp have kept quiet about the situation, with Dennis Robertson not responding to media requests thus far. However, one key element that could help Kawhi’s case is that when Aspiration filed for bankruptcy, they still owed Kawhi $7 million of his $28 million deal.
The consequences of the Clippers-Kawhi scandal are not likely to be major, as under the current CBA the max punishment to the Clippers would be minor. A $7.5 million fine would be chump change to Steve Ballmer, but losing draft picks could prove to be slightly more detrimental to the organization. Kawhi Leonard himself could lose his contract if major wrongdoing is found, but that is unlikely to occur. NBA investigations rarely result in meaningful punishment, so the main consequences of this scandal will be seen with the next collective bargaining agreement, as fines and other punishments could be amplified to prevent salary cap circumvention like this from happening in the future. After the messy 2019 free agency where players recruited players to each other’s team, the next CBA disallowed this from happening in the future, so there is a decent chance that the next CBA will crack down on salary cap evasion. The New York law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz will be conducting the NBA’s investigation into the Los Angeles Clippers and their sponsorship deal with Aspiration. It is unlikely for any results to come of this investigation until around the 2026 All-Star Break, and when the investigation does wrap up, it would be surprising if the Clippers and Kawhi Leonard are punished meaningfully (if at all). More is to come from Pablo Torre’s side of the investigation, as new information is presented on his podcast nearly every day.
Contact Alexander at alexander.fry@student.shu.edu