The Los Angeles Clippers have been accused of engaging in salary cap circumvention with star forward Kawhi Leonard, according to a bombshell Wednesday report from investigative journalist Pablo Torre. The story stems from a March 2025 bankruptcy filing of Aspiration, a now-bankrupt sustainability company that received $50 million in funding from Clippers owner Steve Ballmer.
The NBA said on Wednesday afternoon that it was looking into the allegations, and a report by The Athletic on Thursday said that the league has hired the New York-based law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz to conduct the investigation.
Aspiration has since dealt with accusations of fraud, and co-founder Joseph Sanberg has since pleaded guilty to defrauding multiple investors. That filing included a list of creditors to whom Aspiration still owed money. Among them? KL2 Aspire LLC, a corporation that lists Kawhi Leonard as its manager.
Those filings show that Aspiration still owes Leonard $7 million. Yet Torre’s reporting did not find a single instance in which Leonard endorsed or even mentioned Aspiration, as one would expect in an endorsement arrangement. A number of other celebrities, including Milwaukee Bucks coach Doc Rivers, did provide endorsements for the company.
A document Torre obtained, which Leonard signed, showed that Leonard was to be paid $28 million in cash over the course of four years between 2022 and 2025 as long as he was playing for the Clippers. Reporting from the Boston Sports Journal, which Torre later confirmed, stated that Aspiration also had a secret side deal with Leonard worth another $20 million, bringing the total up to $48 million, just shy of Ballmer’s alleged $50 million investment in the company.
One former Aspiration employee in the finance department said on Torre’s podcast, Pablo Torre Finds Out, that the deal “was to circumvent the salary cap, lol.”
So, what does all of this mean? Let’s dig into the NBA’s rules on salary cap circumvention in an attempt to find out.
What is salary cap circumvention?
If you’d like the legal definition of cap circumvention, it can be found between pages 339 and 346 of the NBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement. The relevant section for our purposes can be found in Article XIII, Section 1(b):
“It shall constitute a violation of Section 1(a) above for a Team (or Team Affiliate) to enter into an agreement or understanding with any sponsor or business partner or third party under which such sponsor, business partner, or third party pays or agrees to pay compensation for basketball services (even if such compensation is ostensibly designated as being for non-basketball services) to a player under Contract to the Team. Such an agreement with a sponsor or business partner or third party may be inferred where: (i) such compensation from the sponsor or business partner or third party is substantially in excess of the fair market value of any services to be rendered by the player for such sponsor or business partner or third party; and (ii) the Compensation in the Player Contract between the player and the Team is substantially below the fair market value of such Contract.”
So what does this mean? Essentially, salary cap circumvention is when a team uses a third party to pay a player more than he is contractually owed or legally allowed to earn under the terms of salary cap. The simplest way to do this would be through an endorsement contract with a company that the team or owner is in some way involved in.
It is exceedingly rare that a team is actually proven to have circumvented the salary cap. However, there are a number of scenarios that the rules are meant to protect against. The most obvious would be a superstar attempting to earn more than his league-mandated maximum salary, but there are others. One example of cap circumvention could be a team signing a player to a below-market contract as a free agent with the understanding that they will later pay that player more when they have accumulated the requisite Bird Rights to do so. Another would be paying a player who is underpaid and ineligible for a contract extension under league rules. These rules exist to prevent teams from attempting to gain a competitive advantage by paying players more than the salary cap allows.
Leonard, who originally signed with the Clippers in the summer of 2019, signed a three-year contract extension worth nearly $150 million in 2024.
Has anyone ever been caught circumventing the cap?
In 1993, the NBA argued that the Portland Trail Blazers circumvented the salary cap due to the unusual structure of a contract they gave to center Chris Dudley. That deal, a seven-year, $11 million pact, included an opt-out after the first season. That was significant because at that time, a free agent gained full Bird Rights with a new team after only one year, so Dudley would have had the ability to opt out and become a free agent, at which point the Blazers could have gone above the salary cap to re-sign him for more money. This contract was ultimately upheld in arbitration, and Dudley did not exercise that opt out as he got hurt in his first year in Portland. The league’s rules on contract structures have since gotten significantly stricter. Other players at the time, such as Toni Kukoc and Craig Ehlo, had similar clauses in their contracts.
In 1996, superagent David Falk reportedly hatched a cap circumvention scheme meant to allow the New York Knicks to make a competitive financial offer to sign Michael Jordan as a free agent. The same parent company, ITT Corporation, owned both the Knicks and Sheraton Hotels. While the Knicks had cap space, at that point, there was no maximum salary, meaning the Bulls, with Jordan’s Bird Rights, were capable of offering literally any amount of money to retain him. Therefore, the plan was for Jordan to be paid $15 million to endorse Sheraton Hotels. The plan was never officially brought before the league; however, Jordan ultimately re-signed with the Bulls.
The most well-known case of cap circumvention in league history, though, involved former No. 1 overall pick Joe Smith. While Smith had not turned into the superstar Golden State had hoped when using the top pick on him in 1995, he was still viewed as a top free agent in 1998. It was surprising, therefore, when he signed a cheap, one-year deal to join the Minnesota Timberwolves.
Two years later, Smith’s agent left his former firm and a messy lawsuit allowed the truth to come to light: Smith had signed three separate one-year deals with the Timberwolves, which would have allowed Minnesota to gain his full Bird Rights after the third season and then give him a new, long-term deal after that which could have paid him as much as $86 million.
Then-NBA commissioner David Stern issued a historic punishment for that circumvention. The Timberwolves were fined $3.5 million. All of Smith’s contracts were voided, and with them his Bird Rights with Minnesota. Then-owner Glen Taylor was barred from operating the Timberwolves for a year. But most notably, Stern stripped the Timberwolves of their next five first-round picks. The penalty was so severe that he ultimately returned their picks in 2003 and 2005, but they still lost three in the process.
What is the penalty for cap circumvention today?
Well, that depends on what sort of violation is committed. Article XIII, Section 1 of the CBA covers “General Prohibitions” when it comes to circumvention. Section 2 covers “Unauthorized Agreements.” The CBA separately lists possible penalties for violations of Section 1 and Section 2 within Section 3. A Section 1 violation would seemingly carry a more lenient penalty, potentially including the following at the commissioner’s discretion:
- A fine of up to $4.5 million for a first offense.
- A fine of up to $5.5 million for the second and any subsequent offenses.
- The forfeiture of one first-round draft pick.
- Contracts or transactions that violated league rules can be voided.
However, a Section 2 violation could potentially carry more significant penalties:
- A fine of up to $7.5 million.
- A suspension of up to one year for any team personnel found to be willfully engaged in the violation.
- Contracts or transactions that violate league rules can be voided.
- The forfeiture of draft picks.
That last point is significant. No type or amount of draft picks is specified, which would seemingly give the commissioner far more latitude to determine the punishment in the case of a Section 2 violation. Therefore, the punishment the league issues the Clippers if they are indeed found to have circumvented the salary cap would ultimately depend on the exact nature of the violation that the investigation finds.
Have there ever been accusations against Leonard or the Clippers?
In 2015, the Clippers were fined $250,000 for offering DeAndre Jordan an unauthorized endorsement contract. Brad Turner of The Los Angeles Times reported at the time that they offered him a $200,000 per year endorsement contract with Lexus. Ballmer had owned the Clippers for less than a year at the time of the Jordan negotiation.
Neither Leonard nor the Clippers have ever been proven to have circumvented the salary cap in regards to their relationship with one another. However, rumors have abounded since Leonard agreed to sign with the Clippers in 2019.
In the immediate aftermath of Leonard’s decision, The Athletic’s Sam Amick reported that a complaint was issued to the league office accusing Dennis Robertson, Leonard’s uncle, of asking for improper benefits during the free agency process. From Amick’s reporting at the time:
“The stories about Robertson’s wish list made their way to the league office soon after Leonard made his decision, with concerned parties reporting that Leonard’s uncle had asked pursuing teams for much, much more than a max contract (Kawhi ultimately signed a three-year, $103 million deal with the Clippers). Sources say the league was told that Robertson asked team officials for part ownership of the team, a private plane that would be available at all times, a house and — last but certainly not least — a guaranteed amount of off-court endorsement money that they could expect if Leonard played for their team. All of those items, to be clear, would fall well outside the confines of the league’s collective bargaining agreement.”
Amick reported that Robertson made those requests of the Lakers and Raptors. However, the NBA did not find any evidence that the Clippers met these requests. Adam Silver addressed the investigation directly to The Athletic.
“We did tell our teams [at the Board of Governors meeting in New York in late September] that we are looking into and continue to look into activities from this summer,” Silver told The Athletic in 2019 when asked if the Clippers were under investigation. “I will also say that we [were] trying to draw a line at this board meeting, and focus everyone on the [free agency] rules going forward. I think that [I’ll] just leave it at that. We are looking at the behavior from the summer. We have and we continue to look at it, but first and foremost, we want to change the way business is done going forward.”
Notably, Amick reported that “if any relevant evidence of improper benefits surfaces in the future, the league will re-open the investigation and pursue the charges yet again.” In 2020, the NBA was forced to investigate the Clippers yet again when Johnny Wilkes, an alleged friend of both Leonard and Robertson, sued the Clippers and team consultant Jerry West, alleging that he was owed $2.5 million for helping the Clippers secure Leonard’s services. In 2022, that lawsuit was dismissed in the Los Angeles Superior Court.
Leonard signed with the Clippers in July of 2019. However, the term of the deal obtained by Torre began on April 1, 2022, and was set to end on March 31, 2026. Leonard’s initial contract with the Clippers was for three years and $104 million. In 2021, he re-signed on a four-year, $176 million deal, and then in 2024, he extended again for $149.5 million over three years.
How have the Clippers and the league responded?
The NBA released a statement on Wednesday afternoon through a spokesperson saying, “We are aware of this morning’s media report regarding the L.A. Clippers and are commencing an investigation.”
The Clippers, meanwhile, wrote in a statement to Torre that “Neither Mr. Ballmer nor the Clippers circumvented the salary cap or engaged in any misconduct related to Aspiration. Any contrary assertion is provably false.” Ballmer himself appeared on SportsCenter on Thursday night to explain his side of the story. He claimed that while the Clippers introduced Leonard to Aspiration in 2021, after Leonard had agreed to a contract extension and the Clippers had announced a $300 million partnership with Aspiration, they were not involved in their deal.
“We were done. We were done with Kawhi, we were done with Aspiration. The deals were all locked and loaded,” Ballmer said. “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.”
Mark Cuban, the outspoken former Mavericks owner, shared his thoughts on Wednesday, posting on social media that he’s “Team Ballmer.”
“As much as I wish they circumvented the salary cap, first Steve isn’t that dumb,” Cuban wrote. “If he did try to feed KL money, knowing what was at stake for him personally, and his team, do you think he would let the company go bankrupt? Knowing all creditors would be visible to the world?”
On Thursday, Cuban appeared on Torre’s podcast and argued that point.
Leonard has not commented publicly.
