{"id":122706,"date":"2025-09-06T08:05:15","date_gmt":"2025-09-06T08:05:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/122706\/"},"modified":"2025-09-06T08:05:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-06T08:05:15","slug":"nba-hires-law-firm-to-investigate-kawhi-leonard-scandal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/122706\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA hires law firm to investigate Kawhi Leonard scandal"},"content":{"rendered":"

The NBA is taking the Kawhi Leonard-Clippers endorsement scandal seriously.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The league hired the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen and Katz to investigate allegations that Clippers owner Steve Ballmer and Leonard circumvented the salary cap with a $28 million no-show marketing deal<\/a> with a company called Aspiration, The Athletic reported Friday<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen and Katz is the same law firm the league hired to investigate former Clippers owner Donald Sterling and ex-Suns owner Robert Sarver, both of whom faced misconduct charges before their tenures came to an end.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"OwnerOwner Steven Ballmer of the LA Clippers looks on before the game against the Los Angeles Lakers at Crypto.com Arena on March 02, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. Getty Images<\/p>\n

The allegations first surfaced in an episode of the \u201cPablo Torre Finds Out\u201d podcast<\/a> on Wednesday, which reported that the environmental start-up \u2014 partially funded by a $50 million investment from Ballmer \u2014 had inked Leonard to a four-year endorsement deal.<\/p>\n

Some former Aspiration employees who had worked in the finance department told Torre that the deal was viewed as a way for the Clippers to work around the league\u2019s salary cap.<\/p>\n

The Clippers denied the allegations shortly after the episode made rounds across the internet.<\/p>\n

\u201cNeither Mr. Ballmer nor the Clippers circumvented the salary-cap or engaged in any misconduct related to Aspiration,\u201d the team said in a statement. \u201cAny contrary assertion is provably false: The team ended its relationship with Aspiration years ago, during the 2022-23 season, when Aspiration defaulted on its obligations.\u00a0 Neither the Clippers nor Mr. Ballmer was aware of any improper activity by Aspiration or its co-founder until after the government instituted its investigation.<\/p>\n

\"KawhiKawhi Leonard of the LA Clippers looks on during Round One Game Two of the 2025 NBA Playoffs against the Denver Nuggets on April 21, 2025 at Ball Arena in Denver, Colorado. NBAE via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cThe team and Mr. Ballmer stand ready to assist law enforcement in any way they can.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ballmer told ESPN\u2019s Ramona Shelburne<\/a> late Thursday night that he was \u201cembarrassed\u201d by the news, but denied any wrongdoing, stating that he was conned by the company.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI had no board seat. I had no control. Heck, it was a fraudulent company. It\u2019s possible nobody had any control,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

After Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen and Katz\u2019s 2014 investigation into Sterling for racially insensitive comments, the disgraced former Clippers owner was banned from the NBA.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sarver, who was investigated for inappropriate behavior in 2022, sold the Suns after being suspended for a year by the league.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NBA is taking the Kawhi Leonard-Clippers endorsement scandal seriously.\u00a0 The league hired the law firm Wachtell, Lipton,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":122707,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,86396,1175,7236,590,73915,85,82014],"class_list":["post-122706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-donald-sterling","tag-kawhi-leonard","tag-los-angeles-clippers","tag-nba","tag-robert-sarver","tag-sports","tag-steve-ballmer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122706","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=122706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122706\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/122707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}