{"id":117944,"date":"2025-09-03T23:49:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T23:49:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/117944\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T23:49:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T23:49:10","slug":"all-eyes-on-nba-commissioner-after-bombshell-report-on-kawhi-leonard-clippers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/117944\/","title":{"rendered":"All eyes on NBA commissioner after bombshell report on Kawhi Leonard, Clippers"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are few things that should be less surprising than the Los Angeles Clippers<\/a> (allegedly) using the enormous financial might of owner Steve Ballmer to retain the services of superstar forward Kawhi Leonard<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What is surprising is that\u00a0he\u00a0might have been caught.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Money, to someone of Ballmer\u2019s wealth, is immaterial. As of Tuesday morning, the former Microsoft CEO had a net worth of $174 billion. He\u2019s made $27 billion so far this year, according to the\u00a0Forbes Billionaires Index<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That makes him the seventh richest person in the world, and way, way richer than even really rich people. Miriam Adelson, the Dallas Mavericks owner best known for signing off on the Luka Doncic trade, has to get by on a paltry $41 billion. Dan Gilbert, who owns the Cleveland Cavaliers, is worth $36.5 billion, depending on what he can find between the couch cushions on a given day.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Normal people can\u2019t really comprehend how much money we\u2019re talking about here.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But here\u2019s one measure: Leonard, who led the Toronto Raptors to their 2019 NBA title, is set to earn $50 million this coming season. At that rate, Ballmer could hire an army of 1,000 similarly paid stars and still have $173 billion to spend.\u00a0<\/p>\n

All of which is to say that the report from journalist Pablo Torre on his well-regarded podcast, Pablo Torre Finds Out, that Leonard earned $28 million for a \u2018no-show\u2019 endorsement deal from a (now bankrupt) tree planting company shouldn\u2019t be all that shocking.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The gist: Ballmer invested in a company called Aspiration that featured a number of high-profile spokespeople (Drake, as well as actors Leonard DiCaprio and Robert Downey Jr., for example) but the one who was paid the most was Leonard. According to Torres\u2019 report, the contract allowed Leonard to refuse any request made of him, and there is no record of Leonard ever doing any kind of promotional work for the company.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And, according to the report, the contract was only valid as long as Leonard was playing for the Clippers.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When asked for comment, NBA spokesman Mike Bass told Sportsnet: \u201cWe are aware of this morning\u2019s media report regarding the LA Clippers and are commencing an investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Raptors fans, it might offer some small measure of gratification, if not any actual satisfaction.<\/p>\n

When Leonard bolted for the Clippers while the champagne from the championship celebration was still sticky in the summer of 2019, there were rumours that Ballmer and the Clippers had used financial incentives above and beyond the three-year, $104-million contract Leaonard signed with the Los Angeles team to close the deal.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Remember, the Raptors were prepared to offer Leonard a deal worth $190 million over five years, the richest deal any team could offer since he was a returning player. At the time the \u2018somewhat\u2019 plausible explanation for Leonard \u2014 plagued by injuries even then \u2014 leaving $86 million guaranteed on the table was because he wanted to go home to Southern California above all else. Also, by signing a shorter-term deal Leonard could sign a new contract when he had finished his 10th\u00a0season and was eligible for a contract that would pay him 35 per cent of the salary cap, compared to the 30 per cent the Raptors could have offered Leonard after his eighth season, which is how he would make up the guaranteed money he was risking by leaving Toronto<\/p>\n

But whispers from league sources at the time were that Leonard\u2019s uncle and adviser, Dennis Robertson, was asking for all kinds of additional compensation for Leonard, including an ownership stake in whichever franchise he would sign with.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Raptors weren\u2019t the only team to complain to the league office, and NBA commissioner Adam Silver did investigate, but found no wrongdoing. That could be because nothing happened \u2014 just because a player\u2019s relative asks for something, doesn\u2019t mean they got it \u2014 or it could be because finding the violation was beyond the league\u2019s investigative abilities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What if an owner decided to offer a player an incentive via cryptocurrency? Or a suitcase full of cash? Or bricks of gold bullion? Or stock tips whispered to a third party?\u00a0<\/p>\n

All of which is forbidden under the league\u2019s collective bargaining agreement, which outlines exactly how, when and how much teams can pay players in excruciating detail.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But good luck trying to track down those kinds of under-the-table dealings.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Which is what makes this case so fascinating. The paper trail detailed in Torre\u2019s reporting points to Leonard profiting from a company affiliated with Ballmer.<\/p>\n

Allegedly shovelling an extra $28 million to a player through a company attached to the team\u2019s owner for doing nothing would seem to violate not only the spirit of the CBA, but the letter of it, as outlined in section 13 of the document where neither players or teams can \u201cundertake any action or transaction \u2026 designed to serve the purpose of defeating or circumventing\u201d the provisions laid out in the exhaustive 560-page document.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If the allegations are proven true \u2014 and the Clippers have stoutly denied them in a statement provided to Torre: “Neither Mr. Ballmer nor the Clippers circumvented the salary cap or engaged in any misconduct related to Aspiration. Any contrary assertion is provably false” \u2014 the penalties could potentially be significant if Silver chooses to bring down the proverbial hammer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The league can impose a $4.5-million penalty on first offence, but fines clearly won\u2019t be much of a deterrence to Ballmer. Having to potentially forfeit a first-round pick or picks would certainly get his attention. The CBA also allows for the league to void the player\u2019s contract, but it\u2019s hard to imagine the NBA going to that extreme, and in any case the timeline of the endorsement deal lines up with the contract Leonard signed in 2021 (four years, $176 million) and the Clippers star has since signed a new, three-year deal that kicks in this season. The league could also suspend Ballmer and Clippers executives.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This is new territory for the league. While under-the-table payments get chattered about \u2014 NBA superstars are arguably underpaid given the hundreds of millions of dollars in equity value the likes of LeBron James, Steph Curry or Shai Gilgeous-Alexander can deliver to team owners \u2014 there is no case in league lore like this one.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But there is precedent on how the matter might be dealt with.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When Silver said the league office was investigating the Clippers back in 2019, he described salary-cap circumvention as the league\u2019s \u201ccardinal sin.\u201d<\/p>\n

Proof is that the last time a team was caught for cap circumvention the punishment was the so-called \u2018death penalty\u2019. It was levied back in 2000 when the Minnesota Timberwolves were required to forfeit five first-round picks, fined $3.5 million and had then-owner Glen Taylor suspended for a one year for convincing free-agent Joe Smith to sign a series of below-market deals so they could build a supporting cast around superstar Kevin Garnett.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Then-Timberwolves GM Kevin McHale officially denied any wrongdoing in the matter:\u00a0\u201cI haven\u2019t read a contract in four or five years,\u201d he said at the time, but added that these kinds of arrangements were not uncommon: \u201cThere are eight to 10 teams that do this all the time. They\u2019re just good at it. We\u2019re bad.\u201d<\/p>\n

It turns out the Clippers might not be much better. The way this is all blowing up, maybe the play would have been to bury a sack of cash in the backyard of Leonard\u2019s San Diego mansion.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Depending how it shakes out, it could significantly impact the Clippers\u2019 competitive future.<\/p>\n

Which might give Raptors fans some sense of satisfaction. Yes, what seemed like a raw deal at the time \u2014 having Leonard leave to join a worse team for less money seemed fishy at the time \u2014 could well have been fishy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But it won\u2019t bring back Leonard, or the championships he and the Raptors likely left on the table when he took the Clippers’ money in any form.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are few things that should be less surprising than the Los Angeles Clippers (allegedly) using the enormous…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":117945,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-117944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117944\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}