Bruce Arthur of The Toronto Star (subscription required) has added another fascinating detail to the Kawhi Leonard/Clippers saga, reporting that when the Raptors were negotiating with Leonard in 2019’s free agent period, his camp asked the team for an arrangement that lines up with the deal the star forward eventually got with the company Aspiration. According to Arthur, the demands made by Leonard’s uncle and representative, Dennis Robertson, included $10MM per year in extra sponsorship income.
The Raptors weren’t permitted to negotiate or have any involvement in those off-court sponsorship deals, but suggested there would be corporate sponsors eager to have Leonard as a promoter. However, they were told by Leonard’s camp that he didn’t want to have to do anything for that extra money, such as filming advertisements or making promotional appearances.
“That’s when the Raptors realized Leonard wasn’t asking to be introduced to Toronto’s lucrative corporate community,” Arthur writes. “They were being asked to arrange no-show jobs, and arrange no-investment investments. (They) rejected both proposals.”
Arthur previously reported that Leonard’s camp asked for a stake in the NHL’s Toronto Maple Leafs, who share an ownership group with the Raptors.
Leonard and the Clippers are being investigated by the NBA after reports indicated that Aspiration – a Clippers sponsor that received a $50MM investment from team owner Steve Ballmer – agreed to pay the two-time Finals MVP $28MM, plus an additional $20MM in company stock.
While it was ostensibly an endorsement deal, Leonard wasn’t contractually obligated to actually do anything to earn that $28MM, which represented an unusually high amount for any sort of off-court sponsorship agreement. The league is looking into whether the Clippers were essentially funneling money to Leonard via Aspiration in order to circumvent the salary cap.
Here are a few more notes on the subject:
- Appearing on NBA Today on Monday (Twitter video link), ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne reported that Aspiration offered almost double the $550MM that Intuit did for the naming rights to the Clippers’ arena, but the Clippers opted to go with the more well-established brand. “That gives you an indication of the kind of money that (Aspiration) was throwing around back in those days,” Shelburne said.
- During that same NBA Today segment (Twitter video link), ESPN’s Dave McMenamin said that a Clippers source likened a tampering violation to a speeding ticket and salary cap circumvention as a “murder charge,” the implication being that the team knows not to cross that red line. The team has conveyed that it is “welcoming” the NBA’s investigation into the matter, McMenamin adds.
- Eric Pincus of Bleacher Report explores three potential outcomes of the NBA’s investigation into the Clippers and Leonard, ranging from the Clippers getting off scot-free to the organization (and Leonard) facing a Timberwolves/Joe Smith-style punishment. When the NBA learned in 2000 that the Timberwolves had entered into an illegal contract with Smith to circumvent the cap, it fined the organization $3.5MM, took away five first-round picks (two were later returned), and voided Smith’s contract.
The Clippers denials don’t sound very enthusiastic. Also we are supposed to believe the Clippers PR when they tell us Aspiration offered $1B for stadium naming rights and they turned it down!? This is a disgrace. Sell the team lose three firsts.
If Ballmer was actually innocent and wanted to address the allegations he would’ve accepted an interview with Pablo Torre. Instead, he goes to ESPN, a league partner, and is interviewed by Ramona, a journalist with many ties to the Clippers. That says everything.
Everything out of ESPN is PR right now smh
Doesn’t really say anything. Fake news “journalists” hit people with absurd questions not based in reality all the time. Worded to make you look guilty by process of denial. Not everyone can think clearly under pressure and don’t want to be ambushed by someone playing fast and loose with facts to sell a narrative.
By your standard, innocent people should allow the government to stop you without cause, search your home whenever they want, read your emails and go through your mail. After all, you’re innocent, so why should you care?
This is the most overlooked point, Ballmer knew this company wasn’t viable
ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne reported that Aspiration offered almost double the $550MM that Intuit did for the naming rights to the Clippers’ arena, but the Clippers opted to go with the more well-established brand.
This is even worse then it sounds. The founder of Aspiration plead guilty to fraud charges. Can we say money money laundering.
Yeah … the re-investment from Ballmer feels like a huge red flag.
The Klaw is about to retire.
NBA better come down hard on the clippersor its unfair to the Raptor on the arrangement.
Remember what they did to former Clippers owner Donald Sterling for being rude? You’d thinking Ballmer cheating is much worse.
Rude? He was way worse than rude. At least Ballmer is trying to win. Albeit illegally.
What word would you use?
He was a racist bigot.
He said some rude things privately to his side piece about her flaunting her promiscuity with a few guys. He also paid hundreds of black men millions of dollars to work for him. Sign me up for that kind of racism towards me.
I’m guessing from your ignorant comment that you are not Black and you don’t play basketball very well.
Ban Kawhi and the Clippers for a season… well the team for a couple, maybe???
This is sounding more and more like an open “secret” around the league
What is strange is the open and obvious nature of the arrangement. While the company involved isn’t (wasn’t) public, the contracts on their face, and the parties’ course of dealing, point clearly (almost too clearly) in the direction of a cap violation. It’s actually Ballmer’s best defense. There are 100’s of less obvious ways to get a player off script consideration (before NIL, colleges and player agents spent decades mastering the art), and Ballmer would have had easy access to the people who came up with them.
The problem is their argument is really mot convincing. The whole premise is the public is expected to believe it is a normal and common business arrangement for a company, out of the kindness of their hearts I guess, to gift a player $28 million dollars and $20 million of stock for zero work. Not a single commercial, picture, video, not even a tweet. And they did that all for him at 4 times the cost they paid to actual celebrities who appeared in endorsements for their company. The whole “trust bro” narrative of the Clippers and media is not good enough.
Ballmer, at this stage, doesn’t (and shouldn’t) care about public opinion. Any public statements he makes in the media are intended for his real audience. To them, he knows he doesn’t need to explain the Aspiration-KL contractual relationship. He just needs to refute any showing that the LAC facilitated it.
An NBA investigation is not (itself) a legal proceeding (at least to start with), but if it leads to anywhere near a meaningful part of the penalty scale, it really is, certainly from an evidentiary standpoint. So, LAC facilitation can’t be presumed, even, as here, where the relationship appears to make no sense without it.
You are actually wrong on this. I can go find the exact wording, but in the CBA the wording says that the team needs to explain the money logically in a way that makes sense when there appears to be wrongdoing. This isn’t a civil or legal court system it’s not innocent until proven guilty in this situation the team actually has to prove and justify why he got that much money to do nothing. In the CBA it also says circumstantial evidence is enough for the league to make a decision.
That means explain their transactions, not those to which it is not a party. If the penalty is a draft pick, it might stay in house. Beyond that, it’s the same as a legal proceeding as it can become one. That’s why Wachtel is involved.
Make kawhi plant trees!!!!!! Lol
😆😆😆😆 wth man lmao
He’d get a doctors note to avoid it anyway
Regardless if the CLIPS come out of this unscathed, heavily punished or somewhere in between ….. one thing is clear, Kawhi & Uncle are guilty as sin.
Kawhi should be banned for a year. He’ll love the time off, but not the lost salaries.
Uncle should be banned for life.
Just 1 year? I think it’ll be at least 2. And, if so, he will retire because it’s so grueling to maintain his legs after so many procedures.
Yup, 2 years is akin to sending him to retirement …. hence I think a year should be sufficient.
If this was a nobody like that Porter kid, Silver will have him thrown to complete obscurity …. Kawhi is still a name, in the sport unfortunately.
I mean he did a bunch of commercials without saying a word…
This entire article is hearsay. Amazing what people assume is fact.
All noise from espn. The inventor of fake news.
Anything Kawhi’s uncle is involved in. You have to question. You knoe he has left trails wherever he’s been. I still not seeing real proof.
Kawhi to Clippers is probably one of worst moves they have made. Clippers should have built thru the draft with SGA. They would be much better off today. This is where greed takes you.
In six year as a Clipper Kawhi has played 266 gms.
Out of 6yrs 492 gms. He has missed 46% of his games. Thats what you payed for ……
SGA had his first Chip this year. Going for another next year.
Hindsight is 20/20. Shai averaged 10.8/2.8/3.3 his rookie season. They traded him for a future Hall of famer.
Hindsight????? This is Truth ……
Boot Leonard. If he was doing it with the Raptors, he’s the problem.
It makes sense that Kawhi wanted money without having to do anything – that basically sums up his NBA career in recent years.
At this point I am beginning to think that Balmer has leaked this to get out of the Kawhi contract…
He isn’t getting any younger… SGA just won a title…
But given Balmer was dumb enough to try and circumvent the salary cap in such a blatantly obvious way… I doubt he has come to that realisation yet…
I’d love to see an Uncle Dennis interview
Me too lol …….
We all know the league won’t gift the raptors with any draft picks so….
It’s funny to see the brave spin from the Clippers, saying that they are “welcoming’ the investigation.
Ofc, the exact opposite is true, this is one of the worst outcomes possible.
Obviously they’re hoping that the “we didn’t know what this fraudulent company was doing” denial will get support from the rest of the league’s billionaires, and judging from Cuban’s support of Ballmer, that might actually work.