{"id":134501,"date":"2025-09-05T11:11:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T11:11:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/134501\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T11:11:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T11:11:06","slug":"la-clippers-owner-steve-ballmer-breaks-silence-over-kawhi-leonard-endorsement-scandal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/134501\/","title":{"rendered":"LA Clippers owner Steve Ballmer breaks silence over Kawhi Leonard endorsement scandal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Los Angeles Clippers\u2019 owner Steve Ballmer is calling on the NBA to investigate other teams accused of circumventing the league\u2019s salary cap in his first comments since being the target of a probe involving Kawhi Leonard\u2019s endorsement deal.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d want the league to investigate, take it seriously. Salary cap circumvention rules are important to the league, and I\u2019d want the league to investigate,\u201d Ballmer told ESPN Thursday.<\/a><\/p>\n

On Wednesday, podcaster Pablo Torre reported allegations of Ballmer and Leonard circumventing the league\u2019s salary cap with a lucrative $28 million no-show marketing deal<\/a> with environmental start-up Aspiration.<\/p>\n

Los Angeles Clippers\u2019 owner Steve Ballmer hands Kawhi Leonard his jersey during an introduction to the team with Paul George on July 24, 2019. Getty Images<\/p>\n

Ballmer invested $50 million into the San Francisco-based company and had deals lined up for advertising opportunities, and at one point, naming rights for the team\u2019s new Inglewood arena that opened in 2024.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were done. We were done with Kawhi, we were done with Aspiration. The deals were all locked and loaded,\u201d Ballmer told the outlet. \u201cThen, they did request to be introduced to Kawhi, and under the rules, we can introduce our sponsors to our athletes. We just can\u2019t be involved.\u201d<\/p>\n

The two-time NBA champion was introduced to the company in November 2021, two months after the team inked the $300 million sponsorship deal with Aspiration.<\/p>\n

Ballmer claims he, nor the team, had any involvement with the deals between Leonard and the company, and were unaware of any negotiations until the partnership was announced.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe even found the email that makes the first introduction. It was early November,\u201d Ballmer said. \u201cThe introduction got made and then they were off to the races on, on their own. We weren\u2019t involved.<\/p>\n

\u201cI eventually learned that they had reached a deal. I have no idea what the deal was,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Steve Ballmer appears on SportsCenter on Sept. 4, 2025. ESPN<\/p>\n

Kawhi Leonard with the ball during a game against the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden on March 26, 2025. JASON SZENES FOR THE NEW YORK POST<\/p>\n

Aspiration also gave Leonard a \u201cside-deal\u201d worth $20 million, Torre reported on Friday, citing the Boston Sports Journal. <\/p>\n

A former Clippers employee told Torre that Ballmer allegedly instructed staffers not to question Leonard\u2019s deal because it was to \u201ccircumvent the salary cap.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Ballmer says he was conned by the company,<\/a> as his mere investment got him less than three percent of the Aspiration used to legitimize the company to other potential investors.<\/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

Aspiration co-founder Joe Sanberg pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud for defrauding investors and lenders of more than $248 million, the Justice Department announced<\/a> in August.<\/p>\n

Kawhi Leonard looks towards the scoreboard during the second half of a game in the Intuit Dome on May 1, 2025. AP<\/p>\n

Ballmer says he was conned by the company, as his mere investment got him less than three percent of the Aspiration used to legitimize the company to other potential investors. ESPN<\/p>\n

He faces up to 40 years in prison.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese were guys who committed fraud. Look, they conned me. They conned me. I made an investment in these guys thinking it was on the up-and-up, and they conned me at this stage. I have no ability to predict why they might have done anything they did, let alone the specific contract with Kawhi,\u201d Ballmer said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI reviewed, my staff reviewed primarily fraudulent financials,\u201d he said. \u201cNow, should I have sniffed it out? Maybe I feel embarrassed and kind of silly that I didn\u2019t sniff it out, but I didn\u2019t,\u201d Ballmer said. \u201cI made the investment. A lot of other smart investors didn\u2019t sniff it out either.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Los Angeles Clippers\u2019 owner Steve Ballmer is calling on the NBA to investigate other teams accused of circumventing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":134502,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[10816,11653,11952,355,84634,99,11652],"class_list":["post-134501","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-investigations","tag-kawhi-leonard","tag-los-angeles-clippers","tag-nba","tag-sponsorships","tag-sports","tag-steve-ballmer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134501","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134501"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134501\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/134502"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134501"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134501"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134501"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}