![\"Steve](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/AP25065182628430-1756973026.jpg\")
Former Microsoft CEO and majority shareholder Steve Ballmer, centre, sitting with former US President Barack Obama, left, at a Los Angeles Clippers game [File: Mark J. Terrill\/AP]Clippers deny endorsement scam<\/p>\nNBA says it will open an investigation into a report that Clippers paid Leonard $28m for no-show job at a company.<\/p>\n
Published On 4 Sep 20254 Sep 2025<\/p>\n
The NBA said on Wednesday it will investigate if a $28m endorsement contract between Kawhi Leonard and a California-based sustainability services company allowed the Los Angeles Clippers to circumvent league salary cap rules, following a report by journalist Pablo Torre.<\/p>\n
The Clippers strongly denied that any rules were broken and said they welcomed the league\u2019s investigation.<\/p>\n
The probe will focus on ties between Leonard, the Clippers and a company called Aspiration Fund Adviser, LLC, which filed for bankruptcy this year. It listed several creditors at that time, among them the Clippers (who were owed about $30m) and a company called KL2 Aspire LLC that was owed $7m.<\/p>\n
Leonard is listed as the manager of that company in California filings. KL are his initials, and 2 is his jersey number. Emails sent to his listed representatives seeking comment on Wednesday were not immediately returned.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are aware of this morning\u2019s media report regarding the LA Clippers and are commencing an investigation,\u201d NBA spokesman Mike Bass said Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Clippers owner Steve Ballmer made a $50m investment in Aspiration, and the company and the team announced a $300m partnership in September 2021. That was about a month after Leonard signed a four-year, $176m extension with the Clippers.<\/p>\n
The team ended its relationship with Aspiration after two years, saying the contract was in default.<\/p>\n
\u201cNeither the Clippers nor Steve Ballmer circumvented the salary cap,\u201d the team said. \u201cThe notion that Steve invested in Aspiration in order to funnel money to Kawhi Leonard is absurd. Steve invested because Aspiration\u2019s cofounders presented themselves as committed to doing right by their customers while protecting the environment.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter a long campaign of market manipulation, which defrauded not only Steve but numerous other investors and sports teams, Aspiration filed for bankruptcy \u2026 Neither Steve nor the Clippers had knowledge of any improper activity by Aspiration or its cofounder until after the government initiated its investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Former Microsoft CEO and majority shareholder Steve Ballmer, centre, sitting with former US President Barack Obama, left, at a Los Angeles Clippers game [File: Mark J. Terrill\/AP]Clippers deny endorsement scam<\/p>\n
Aspiration\u2019s cofounder, Joseph Sanberg, agreed to plead guilty last month after facing federal charges of wire fraud. Prosecutors said he defrauded investors and lenders out of $248m, adding that \u201cAspiration\u2019s financial statements were inaccurate and reflected much higher revenue than the company in fact received.\u201d<\/p>\n
Torre, in his reporting, obtained a copy of the endorsement agreement between Aspiration and KL2 Aspire, one that called for Leonard to be paid $7m annually for four years. Given that timetable, Leonard still would have been owed the final $7m at the time of Aspiration\u2019s bankruptcy filing.<\/p>\n
There is no evidence that Leonard did anything to publicly endorse Aspiration.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is nothing unusual or untoward about team sponsors doing endorsement deals with players on the same team,\u201d the Clippers said. \u201cNeither Steve nor the Clippers organisation had any oversight of Kawhi\u2019s independent endorsement agreement with Aspiration. To say otherwise is flat-out wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n
The league \u2013 which previously looked into claims that Leonard\u2019s representatives asked for certain things that would be considered cap circumventions when he was a free agent several years ago \u2013 can issue stiff penalties if cap rules are found to have been broken by a team, including a fine of up to $7.5m, the voiding of contracts and the forfeiture of future draft picks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NBA says it will open an investigation into a report that Clippers paid Leonard $28m for no-show job…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":117814,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,726,590,44,588,85,1055,6075],"class_list":{"0":"post-117813","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-nba","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-sport","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-us-canada"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117813\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}