Clippers star Kawhi Leonard and his uncle and business adviser Dennis Robertson are among those who have been interviewed by NBA investigators who are looking into allegations that the team circumvented salary cap rules, according to an ESPN report.
Leonard and Robertson are central figures in the team’s dealings with Aspiration, the now-defunct green banking company. Clippers owner Steven Ballmer and other team executives, as well as Aspiration executives, also have sat for interviews.
The NBA launched its investigation last September following a series of podcasts by journalist Pablo Torre, who claimed that internal documents showed Ballmer invested $50 million in Aspiration through his personal LLC in September 2021. That month, the Clippers also signed a $300 million deal with Aspiration, making the company the first founding partner of the Intuit Dome.
Aspiration signed its $28 million endorsement deal with Leonard six months later, according to Torre, who said an unnamed Aspiration employee said Leonard’s sponsorship deal “was to circumvent the salary cap.”
Robertson, however, reportedly made demands that would have gone beyond what NBA rules allow. Both the team and Leonard himself have denied the allegations.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver said on Wednesday that the investigation was “far along” and that the league is “close to the point now where I think we need to wrap this up.” He did not give a timeline during his comments before Game 1 of the NBA Finals, but said the Clippers, as well as the other 29 teams, need “to understand what situation they are going to be operating under.”
Silver’s comments came two days after Aspiration co-founder Joseph Sanberg was sentenced to 14 years in federal prison on two counts of wire fraud after prosecutors said he defrauded investors and lenders out of $248 million by fraudulently obtaining loans, falsifying bank and brokerage statements. Each count carried a maximum of 20 years in prison.
Ballmer, who reportedly invested $60 million of his own money in the green banking company, has said he introduced Leonard to Aspiration but told Ramona Shelburne of ESPN last September that he had no knowledge of the player’s deal.
A source close to Leonard’s camp also denied the allegations to ESPN, saying that the Clippers weren’t involved with Leonard’s deal beyond the 2021 introduction and there wasn’t any mention of trying to circumvent the salary cap.
A source close to the team told SCNG late in the season that the deal was not a “no show” contract.
Leonard said after being eliminated from playoff contention in April that he was “not stressing” about how the investigation would play out.
“I never thought about it too much other than questions asked. You’ll have to ask the NBA, not me. I’m not the one doing the investigation. … I think we’re going to be in the clear,” the seven-time All-Star said.
Last September, Silver said the burden was on the league to bring forth any discipline, adding that the NBA and its investigators would look at “the totality of the evidence” and that “as a matter of fundamental fairness, I would be reluctant to act if there was sort of a mere appearance of impropriety.”
If the Clippers are found to have circumvented salary cap rules, they could face fines up to $7.5 million, forfeiture of draft picks, voiding any player contract and a suspension of up to a year for any team personnel found to have engaged in the violation.
The Clippers own the No. 5 pick in this month’s draft, their highest selection since 2009 when they took Blake Griffin with the top pick. The NBA draft will be held June 23-24 in New York.