As revealed by investigative journalist Pablo Torre, Los Angeles Clippers’ Kawhi Leonard reportedly took payments from a shell company as a means of circumventing the NBA’s salary cap and collective bargaining agreement. The report alleges that Leonard received $28 million in “no-show” endorsements from Aspiration, a digital bank that had signed a deal worth $300 million with the Clippers in 2021. In addition, Clippers owner Steve Ballmer personally invested $50 million in the company. The deal between Aspiration and Leonard was done through Leonard’s LLC, KL2, and involved the $28 million being paid out over 4 years.
Despite being listed as one of Aspiration’s creditors in their bankruptcy filings in 2025, there seems to be no media record of Leonard having ever endorsed the company. At a glance, this already appears suspicious, as the company had previously paid out millions of dollars to A-list celebrities such as Robert Downey Jr. and Leonardo DiCaprio to endorse them. Despite a paper trail of $28 million, no advertisements were ever made with Leonard. Aspiration, which can be described as a “green bank” with the mission of providing equity for sustainability projects, had been in the news before this scandal, as its founder, Joseph Sandberg, was arrested on charges of defrauding creditors in March of this year. In the week following Pablo Torre’s announcement of the Leonard scandal, Ballmer went on ESPN looking to clear his name, claiming that he was unaware of any dealings between Leonard and Aspiration, and that he himself had been “conned.”
Ballmer’s story appears increasingly unlikely, however, as Torre’s findings suggest that Ballmer was siphoning money to Aspiration through his philanthropic enterprise Ballmer Group, as a means of providing them enough cash to pay Leonard. The Ballmer Group’s grantees listings show a $1.875 million grant to the Golden State Opportunity Foundation, headed by none other than Joseph Sandberg, in December 2024. This was over a year after the Clippers had announced the termination of their partnership with Aspiration amidst investigations by the federal government.
Furthermore, text messages obtained from Torre confirm that both Leonard’s agent, Mitch Frankel, and his uncle, Dennis Roberston, had pressured Aspiration for endorsement payments in the realm of $1.5 million, with the paper trail suggesting that this money came from the infusion of cash Ballmer Group had given to Sandberg. Robertson has come under fire before, as it was alleged in 2019 that he, as Kawhi’s spokesperson, had pressured teams into giving Kawhi “no-show” endorsements like the Clippers allegedly did, as well as ownership stakes, during Kawhi’s free agency in 2019. Despite some suspecting that Robertson had potentially signed this deal with Aspiration behind both Leonard and the Clippers’ backs, the text messages indicate that Leonard’s team, including Frankle, was fully aware of these proceedings.
Although the NBA has not concluded its official investigation and not dealt out any punishment to either Leonard or the Clippers organization, this scandal will likely come with hefty consequences for both the Clippers and Leonard. The NBA’s collective bargaining agreement imposes severe penalties for teams that attempt to circumvent the salary cap, including fines of up to $7.5 million and the potential loss of future draft picks. The loss of draft picks would be especially rough for a team that already traded away five future first-round picks and two pick swaps in 2019 for Paul George. This is ironic because Leonard had personally requested that the team trade for when he signed. As a result, the Clippers might not have rights to any of their future draft picks through 2032. This would be catastrophic for the franchise’s hopes of remaining competitive, so it is equally likely that the league forces the Clippers to sell the team. Given how a fine would hardly impact Ballmer, who is a billionaire, personally, and how removing draft picks would destroy the team’s chances at future competitiveness, it seems like this option is on the board if the NBA concludes Ballmer was personally involved. This would not be the first time the league removed an owner, with the league having already disposed of the former Clippers owner, Donald Sterling, over allegations of racism.
As for Leonard himself, if the NBA’s investigation finds substantial wrongdoing, it is likely that he will be suspended for some time, possibly an entire season. Equally probable is the voiding of his contract with the Clippers, which was signed using bird rights, and still has $100 million on it for the next two seasons. This would not be the first time the NBA voided a player’s contract based on illegal free agency proceedings, as Joe Smith and the Timberwolves were both severely penalized for doing so back in 2000. In this instance, Smith and the Timberwolves signed an illegal agreement that Smith would sign with the team well under market value for two years, on two separate one-year contracts, so that in the third year they would have his “bird rights” (a rule that allows teams to go over the salary cap to sign players), and could give him a much more lucrative deal. Smith had his bird rights terminated by the NBA, as well as his past contracts with the Timberwolves voided, resulting in a potential loss of $80 million.
At Clippers media day on Monday, Leonard denied the allegations, suggesting that both he and the Clippers operated fully within the rules, and that “None of us did [any] wrongdoing.” He went on to add that both he and the Clippers welcome the investigations. When asked about his “no-show” sponsorship, he said he believes that description of the deal is inaccurate. “I understand the full contract and the services I had to do,” Leonard said. “I don’t deal with conspiracies or the clickbait analysts or journalism that’s going on.” The NBA will likely take some time to complete its investigation, so any judgment from them is yet to be seen. Given their track record in handling similar scandals, though, this could potentially spell the end of both Ballmer’s and Leonard’s time in the NBA.
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