The NBA handed down sweeping penalties to Clippers owner Steve Ballmer, team executives, the team and Kawhi Leonard following an investigation into allegations the group circumvented the league’s Collective Bargaining Agreement.
The NBA issued the following sanctions after a third-party probe determined Ballmer invested $60 million in a now-defunct company that in turn agreed to pay Leonard $28 million for endorsements he never fulfilled:
- The Clippers are forfeiting first-round draft picks, one apiece in the 2029, 2030, 2031, 2032 and 2033 NBA drafts.
- The Clippers are fined $30 million.
- Ballmer is suspended from all league and team activities for one year for “knowingly seeking to help 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.”
- Clippers president of business operations Gillian Zucker is suspended without pay for one year for “being primarily and directly culpable for the impermissible endorsement arrangements and for providing false and misleading statements to investigators.”
- Clippers president of basketball operations Lawrence Frank is suspended without pay for six months for “his involvement with the impermissible endorsement arrangements and for approving impermissible expenses incurred by Mr. Leonard and his family.”
- The Clippers organization and personnel are subject to a compliance and monitoring program overseen by the league office for a period of five years.
- Leonard is required to pay the league $700,000.
- Dennis Robertson, Leonard’s uncle and previous business manager, is banned from conducting business or otherwise engaging with NBA teams and their affiliates on behalf of or with respect to any player, employee or other league or team personnel for a period of five years.
The Clippers had asserted they had done nothing wrong and are expected to appeal sanctions.
The findings announced Wednesday were the result of a nearly yearlong investigation conducted by Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz, a high-powered New York law firm the NBA frequently uses when attempting to determine off-the-court wrongdoing by team owners, players or referees.
The probe was triggered when the “Pablo Torre Finds Out” podcast aired an episode Sept. 3, 2025, detailing the contract Leonard received from Aspiration, a self-described “socially-conscious and sustainable banking services and investment products” firm.
The deal with Leonard came to light in Aspiration’s bankruptcy documents. Joseph Sanberg, co-founder of the company, pleaded guilty in October to federal charges of conspiring to bilk investors out of $248 million and on June 1 was sentenced to 14 years in federal prison.
One of the primary investors in Aspiration was Ballmer, the former longtime CEO of Microsoft whose estimated net worth is $139 billion. He has owned the Clippers since 2014.
Ballmer invested $50 million in Aspiration in September 2021. A month later, the Clippers announced a $300-million sponsorship deal with the company. Ballmer nearly granted Aspiration naming rights to the team’s new $2-billion arena, but instead chose financial services firm Intuit.
Two years later when Aspiration was experiencing severe financial difficulties, Ballmer invested an additional $10 million and Clippers co-owner Dennis Wong — Ballmer’s former college roommate — invested $1.99 million in Aspiration nine days before Leonard received a $1.75 million payment from the company. Leonard was paid $21 million of the $28 million agreed upon in his contract with Aspiration.
Leonard was traded to the Toronto Raptors on June 30 for Brandon Ingram, Gradey Dick and a slew of draft picks, but the deal was put on hold pending the outcome of the investigation. Leonard led the Raptors to the NBA championship in 2019.
Leonard would not talk about the allegations during the 2025-26 NBA season because the investigation was ongoing and brushed it off during media day in September.
“None of us did … wrongdoing and, yeah, that’s it,” he said. “We invite the investigation.”
Asked if he performed any endorsement work for Aspiration, Leonard said, “I understand the full contract and services that I had to do. Like I said, I don’t deal with conspiracies or the click-bait analysts or journalism that’s going on.”
Players are allowed to have endorsement and business deals, but at issue was whether the Clippers participated in arranging the side deal beyond simply introducing Aspiration executives to Leonard. Doing so would be a violation of Article 13 of the NBA collective bargaining agreement.
Torre reported in July that the investigation grew in scope to examine whether Leonard had a previously unreported endorsement deal with Daktronics — the scoreboard manufacturer for the Intuit Dome — with sources alleging it was used to funnel money. Questions also arose about whether the Clippers were properly reimbursed for Leonard’s expenses.
ESPN reported Aug. 17 that NBA investigators had met with Ballmer and other Clippers officials in an attempt to agree to findings before the case went to arbitration. Although ESPN wrote that three sources told reporters the NBA found no evidence showing Ballmer funneled money through team sponsors to pay Leonard to circumvent the salary cap, the NBA immediately pushed back, releasing a statement that read “ESPN’s article regarding the LA Clippers investigation — for which the NBA declined to cooperate — contains numerous and significant inaccuracies. The results in this matter will be made clear once the investigation is concluded.”
In his only public comments since the accusation, Ballmer told ESPN in September that he was “conned” by Sanberg and Aspiration. He also said he knew nothing of the endorsement deal between the company and Leonard.
“We were done with Kawhi, we were done with Aspiration,” Ballmer said. “The deals were all locked and loaded. Then, they did request to be introduced to Kawhi, and under the rules, we can introduce our sponsors to our athletes. We just can’t be involved.”
Silver had to follow guidelines spelled out in the NBA collective bargaining agreement and could not unilaterally decide whether the Clippers would be punished and how severely.
Leading the investigation was Wachtell Lipton partner David B. Andersk, a renowned lawyer first retained by the NBA in 2007 when the FBI investigated referee Tim Donaghy for allegedly betting on games he officiated.
Anders also headed Wachtell investigations in 2014 into the alleged use of racially charged language by former Clippers owner Donald Sterling and then-Atlanta Hawks owner Bruce Levenson. Seven years later, he investigated alleged racist and misogynistic behavior by then-Phoenix Suns owner Robert Sarver.
More recently, Wachtell investigated allegations that veteran point guard Terry Rozier took himself out of a game so gamblers could win bets on his performance. Federal prosecutors later charged Rozier. It was also Anders and Wachtell who determined that former Toronto Raptors player Jontay Porter placed illegal bets.
Proven incidents of teams circumventing the salary cap are few, with a violation by the Minnesota Timberwolves in 2000 the most egregious.
The Timberwolves made a secret agreement with free agent and former No. 1 overall draft pick Joe Smith, signing him to below-market one-year deals to enable the team to not go over the cap with a huge contract ahead of the 2001-02 season.
The NBA voided his contract, fined the Timberwolves $3.5 million, and stripped them of five first-round draft picks — two of which were later returned. Also, owner Glen Taylor and general manager Kevin McHale were suspended.
Ballmer cannot wipe his hands clean of Aspiration quite yet. He was added as a defendant in a civil lawsuit against Sanberg and others associated with Aspiration — renamed Catona Climate in 2025 just before the bankruptcy filing — brought by 11 investors in the company. Ballmer and other defendants are accused of fraud and aiding and abetting fraud, with the plaintiffs seeking at least $50 million in damages.
“Ballmer was the perfect deep-pocket partner to fund Catona’s flagging operations and lend legitimacy to Catona’s carbon credit business,” says the amended complaint viewed by The Times. “Since Ballmer had publicly promoted himself as an advocate for sustainability, Catona was an ideal vehicle for Ballmer to secretly circumvent the NBA salary cap while purporting to support the company as a legitimate environmentalist investor.”
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