The Clippers Scandal: Context, Impact, and Implications

By Ben Paradis

As of September, the Los Angeles Clippers and owner Steve Ballmer are under investigation by the NBA following a report that Kawhi Leonard allegedly accepted a $28 million endorsement from Aspiration to circumvent the NBA’s salary cap. 

For context, Aspiration is an “environmentally conscious digital bank” that sells products like savings accounts and debit cards from eco-friendly businesses. They also offered access to investment funds that were similarly environmentally conscious. 

In 2021, the Clippers signed a $300 million deal with Aspiration as the first founding partner of the Clippers' new stadium, the Intuit Dome. The deal emphasized making the arena environmentally friendly and included a “Planet Protection Fund” for fans to offset the carbon impact of traveling to a Clippers game. The goal was to make the Intuit Dome the most sustainable arena in the world – at least that’s what they told us. 

In the popular podcast and YouTube showPablo Torre Finds Out, host Pablo Torre digs deeply into controversial topics in sports. As cited in his appearance on the Bill Simmons Podcast, his goal is to “bring back traditional journalism.” Torre was the reporter who uncovered this scandal in September. 

The Scandal

As Torre reported on his podcast, Clippers star Kawhi Leonard signed an endorsement deal with Aspiration in 2022. The deal was reported for four years, promising to pay Kawhi Leonard $28 million through his corporation, KL Aspire, LLC. Reporting by Torre plainly states that the contract allowed Leonard to “decline to proceed with any action desired by the company.”

In other words, Kawhi Leonard had a “no-show” contract, meaning he did not have to promote Aspiration and would still be paid. What kind of company would do this, you may ask? A fraudulent one. 

Things get more suspicious when digging deeper into Torre’s reporting. In 2022, Clippers minority owner Dennis Wong invested $2 million into Aspiration through a personal LLC, just a few days before the company paid Leonard $1.75 million. 

The nails in the coffin from the two final pieces of Torre’s reporting. First, the whole deal would reportedly be voided if Leonard switched teams. Second, and most damning, comes from an unnamed Aspiration employee, who told Pablo Torre that Aspiration’s payments to Kawhi Leonard were “to circumvent the salary cap.”

Why This Matters

The NBA salary cap is currently projected at $154.6 million for the 2025-2026 season, meaning every franchise can only allocate a certain amount of money to its roster. Alongside the salary cap, the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement governs all aspects of player salaries and team payrolls. 

These are the rules that every franchise agrees to, maintaining competitive balance and order within the league. Circumventing the salary cap directly undermines that agreement; it’s cheating. 

Article XII, Section 3 of the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement lists potential punishments for cap circumvention as a $5.5 million fine, forfeiture of draft picks, voiding player contracts, and voiding the agreement with the company. Under Article XII, Section 2, these allegations can be confirmed through “evidence that a player contract or any term or provision thereof cannot rationally be explained in the absence of violative conduct.”

While the investigation is still ongoing and a resolution was reported to be reached around All-Star weekend in February, all signs point to a very harsh punishment for Ballmer, Leonard, and the Clippers. 

Punishment

Although those are the punishments outlined in the collective bargaining agreement, NBA commissioner Adam Silver has complete discretion over how he punishes the Clippers if they are found guilty. 

There is some precedent for Silver's upcoming decision. In 1999, under NBA Commissioner David Stern, the Minnesota Timberwolves implemented a secret agreement with Joe Smith to pay him $86 million over seven years after his initial deal expired. When investigations discovered this, the league recinded Minnesota’s next four first-round picks, fined the team $3.5 million, and forced Smith into free agency. 

Compared with the scandals, the Clippers' situation is much more severe. The Timberwolves made an illegal promise, but the Clippers were seemingly paying Leonard far more than he was allowed under the collective bargaining agreement and salary cap, giving the Clippers an unfair advantage over the rest of the league. From where we stand now, it looks like Ballmer and the Clippers could be handed a much harsher punishment than the Timberwolves in 1999. 

Implications

If the NBA’s ongoing investigation confirms Torre’s reporting, this would be the most significant cheating scandal in modern professional sports history. In many ways, the integrity of the NBA is at stake here. 

The scandal represents a major breach of trust between the league, teams, players, and fans. Salary-cap rules cannot be suggestions; they must be the backbone of competitive balance in the NBA. The league’s response will define how seriously it treats financial integrity moving forward. 

What happens next will not only shape the Clippers already bleak future, but also signal whether the NBA is willing to make an example of one of it’s most powerful franchises.