Clippers wing Kawhi Leonard found himself the subject of unwanted scrutiny Wednesday, when it was reported by The Athletic’s Pablo Torre on his “Pablo Torre Finds Out” podcast that the six-time All-Star had inked a $28MM endorsement deal for “tree brokerage” Aspiration, a former team sponsor that filed for bankruptcy earlier this year. L.A. owner Steve Ballmer invested $50MM into the company.
The 6’7″ swingman reportedly didn’t do any work for the allegedly phony tree-planting company, leading to speculation that the endorsement agreement was a route for Leonard to earn additional money on top of his NBA salary in a manner that would have helped L.A. circumvent the salary cap. Other involved celebrities, including movie stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert Downey Jr., apparently did perform actual work for Aspiration.
The NBA is now investigating the situation to determine if there was indeed any impropriety.
The Clippers initially released statements to Torre and then to The Los Angeles Times denying any wrongdoing. Now, the team has issued an extended denial, as Shams Charania of ESPN (Twitter link) relays.
“Neither the Clippers nor Steve Ballmer circumvented the salary cap,” the Clippers’ statement reads. “The notion that Steve invested in Aspiration in order to funnel money to Kawhi Leonard is absurd. Steve invested because Aspiration’s co-founders presented themselves as committed to doing right by their customers while protecting the environment.
“After a long campaign of market manipulation, which defrauded not only Steve but numerous other investors and sports teams, Aspiration filed for bankruptcy. Its co-founder, Joseph Sanberg, recently pleaded guilty to a $243 million fraud. Neither Steve nor the Clippers had knowledge of any improper activity by Aspiration or its co-founder until after the government initiated its investigation. Aspiration was a team sponsor for the 2021/22 and 2022/23 seasons before defaulting on its contract.
“There is nothing unusual or untoward about team sponsors doing endorsement deals with players on the same time. Neither Steve nor the Clippers organization had any oversight of Kawhi’s independent endorsement agreement with Aspiration. To say otherwise is flat-out wrong.”
“The Clippers take NBA compliance extremely seriously, fully respect the league’s rules, and welcome its investigation related to Aspiration. The Clippers will also continue to cooperate with law enforcement in its investigation into Aspiration’s blatantly fraudulent activity.”
Torre responded to the Clippers’ claims (via Twitter), standing by his reporting and challenging some of the language in the Clippers’ statement.
Torre might get himself in trouble.
This seems like something that shouldn’t even be allowed to begin with — in any sport. There’s a conflict of interest involved. And it would be way too easy to do this in order to circumvent the salary cap.
If nothing else, there should be some strict oversight in place.
From hearing Torre do an interview it sounds like other teams may already be doing this. The league may try to bury it so it doesnt come out the others up to these no show endorsement deals.
The NBA is going to kill their league if they don’t get their house in order and keep things on the up and up. Ratings are projected to drop again because you need like 5 different subscriptions now to watch games. And anyone who thinks that corruption like this can’t harm them just remember sports like boxing, NASCAR, and horse racing were all very popular in the US at one point or another and cheating and corruption ruined it for all of them.
Happens everywhere, your team included. In my country there is a salary cap…..apparently. yet third payments don’t come under the cap. This isn’t new. Steph, Bron etc etc and the list would be crazy long. This is a total non event. It’s the investors that got F’ed over and scammed, including the Clippers owner.
Yeah something about this doesn’t seem right and has a real amateur journalist feel to it. It seems like he got just the right amount of information to say “gotcha” and then stopped digging. There’s no way Ballmer would be this stupid. The Kawhi part is still weird and suspect but I doubt this was an arrangement with the Clips and Kawhi.
Let’s be real – $28m to endorse a tree planting company is absolutely circumventing the cap. A couple of million? Sure, that can slide..but that figure is just ridiculous. There’s no way the NBA can look at this and call it legitimate.
Ballmer got greedy and figured the worst he’d get is a financial slap on the wrist, which he can afford. Hit him with picks, minimum.
He literally did nothing. No press release when he signed it. Like dude did zero with aspiration but cash their checks, and all the people who worked at the company confirmed it.
This may either end up being a nothing burger or a possible serious fraud issue outside of the NBA for Ballmer.
Aspiration got $250 million from all investors, but only $50 million from Ballmer. If Aspiration gave Kwai $28 million for nothing, and they spent money on sponsoring the Clippers, then the other investors can come after Ballmer.
The Fed can potentially get involved if they figure a crime (fraud) was committed Also, if Ballmer claimed this as donation for a worthy cause only for that money to be going to his personal interests that’s tax fraud.
And if Ballmer has all that exposure in this thing, would he allow Aspiration to go bankrupt, so everything becomes public?
A deep dive into who all the other creditors are will be interesting. That’s outside the NBA jurisdiction, and hopefully the Fed that convicted the director of Aspiration for fraud is looking into the whole thing. This might be the start of something huge that extends beyond Ballmer.
Honestly, I believe it
Steve Ballmer is so rich that paying whatever salary tax wouldnt hurt (and he has paid some hefty taxes over the years)
Like he spent billions on a new arena, why would he have to do this
This is dumb as fk. Ballmer is going to end up dealing with a federal investigation just to keep a guy that doesn’t ever play a full season!
The 30 for 30 on the Ballmer clippers is going to be a really good episode.
The worst trade in nba history
Bad signing after bad signing
0 trophies
Mostly just guys in street clothes
Then all of a sudden harden comes and revitalizes things
Only to find out your owner has been committing fraud the whole time with a guy who rarely played. Which costs the franchise numerous first round picks and a hefty fine….once again sending the clippers back to the bottom of the nba again.
You can’t spell Kawhi Leonard without NIL. This reeks of most of the college NIL deals to endorse or work with companies without actually doing any work to justify the $$$.