In one of the largest basketball-related penalties ever levied against an NBA franchise in the league’s history, the NBA on Wednesday fined the Los Angeles Clippers $30 million and star Kawhi Leonard $700,000, suspended the team’s owner, Steve Ballmer, and two top executives and stripped the franchise of five first-round picks after ruling the team had circumvented the league’s salary cap rules.
Ballmer will be suspended from all league and team activities for one year for “knowingly seeking to help Mr. Leonard obtain off-court income opportunities, for approving a business deal that he knew was a precondition for Aspiration to enter into an endorsement agreement with Mr. Leonard, and for his failure to create conditions under which his organization abided by the NBA’s circumvention rules,” the NBA ruled.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver said in a statement that he was “deeply disappointed by the flagrant violations of our rules and by the Clippers’ institutional and leadership failures that led to this misconduct.”
“The NBA’s collectively bargained system for determining player compensation is a fundamental component of the basketball competition that the league oversees for the benefit of the teams and players and ultimately the fans,” Silver added.
The Clippers “vehemently reject the NBA findings, which are the result of a heavily biased investigation seeking justify a predetermined narrative rather than facts and evidence,” the team said in a statement. “What the league told us privately differs from what it announced today publicly, and they have not held themselves close to the standard Commissioner Silver set at the start of this investigation to ensure it’s (sic) fairness and accuracy.”
The Clippers added they intend to “vigorously challenge these findings and penalties through every avenue available to us and look forward to an ethical and impartial arbitration process.”
Last year, the podcast “Pablo Torre Finds Out” reported Leonard had an endorsement deal with a former fintech company, Aspiration, worth millions that had never been publicly disclosed. The NBA enlisted the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen and Katz to perform an independent investigation that ultimately conducted 73 interviews of 60 people, according to a summary the league published Wednesday.
According to the investigation, the Clippers broke league rules by initiating off-court income opportunities and facilitating endorsement agreements between Leonard and four companies that also did business with the team: Aspiration, Boingo Wireless, Daktronics and Lockton Insurance.
The Clippers were “inducing the companies to enter into these agreements by offering them business from the team,” the league said. The Clippers also paid personal expenses for Leonard and his representatives and did not report “improper solicitations for off-court income opportunities” that Leonard’s uncle, Dennis Robertson, made on Leonard’s behalf.
Leonard also violated league rules by “pressuring the Clippers to assist him in obtaining off-court income opportunities, successfully obtaining those opportunities, and failing to reimburse payments by the Clippers for personal expenses,” according to the league. Leonard must repay the NBA $700,000, and his uncle is banned from engaging with or conducting any business with NBA teams for five years.
The Clippers had agreed to trade Leonard to the Toronto Raptors in July.
“Integrity and respect for this game are fundamental to who I am,” Leonard said in a statement provided by his agent. “I accept full responsibility for lapses in judgment by people within my inner circle and regret the distraction this situation has caused the fans and my family.”
Ballmer purchased the Clippers in 2014 after the NBA forced then-owner Donald Sterling to buy the team shortly after voice recordings of Sterling making racist statements became public.
Under Ballmer, the tech titan who had earned billions as the former chief executive of Microsoft, the franchise was remade from one with an undesirable reputation into a destination because of Ballmer’s willingness to spend on staff and players, using his status as the wealthiest owner of a North American sports franchise. Ballmer poured billions into the team, including paying for its new Inglewood, California, arena that opened in 2024 and was used as the site of the NBA’s All-Star game last February.
One of the team’s biggest coups was the signing of Leonard, the reigning MVP of the NBA Finals, as a free agent in 2019, while also trading for another star player, Paul George. The move instantly turned the Clippers, who have never made the NBA Finals, into a championship contender. But the team has only won three playoff series since and was not considered a championship contender entering the upcoming season that begins in October.
The team will begin that season without its top basketball executive, Lawrence Frank, whom the NBA suspended for six months without pay as part of its investigation. Frank was involved “with the impermissible endorsement arrangements and for approving impermissible expenses incurred by Mr. Leonard and his family.”
The team’s top business executive, Gillian Zucker, will be suspended without pay for one year, meanwhile, “for being primarily and directly culpable for the impermissible endorsement arrangements and for providing false and misleading statements to investigators.”
Wachtell, Lipton Rosen and Katz wrote in its summary that its investigation was “challenged by, among other things, the approach of the Clippers and their outside counsel, who at times delayed in responding to requests for information and operated in an adversarial or obfuscatory manner that slowed investigators’ ability to gather the facts.”
The team’s compliance with the penalties will be monitored by the league for the next five years.
