On the eve of the Clippers’ training camp, owner Steve Ballmer and the team face pressure from an NBA investigation accused the team of bypassing the league’s salary cap when a sustainability company paid star Kawhi Leonard $21 million.
Since buying the team a decade ago, Ballmer has been looking to bring the same Clippers the first NBA title. The billionaire philanthropist’s encouragement and frustration for a team that has won every season under ownership, but has withdrawn from the habit early from the playoffs. He also pioneered the technologically advanced and environmentally friendly stage in the movement – the $20 billion Intuit Dome opened a year ago to recognize your comments.
Now, one of the top law firms hired by the NBA are trying to raise additional funds from Leonard through a separate company, in which the Clippers owners are investors.
Over the past few weeks, Ballmer has been given details about his $50 million investment and 2%-3% ownership stake, and whether the Clippers knows whether the now-defunct company has paid Leonard millions through an endorsement deal. Wish provides what the company calls “socially conscious and sustainable banking services and investment products.”
The Clippers issued a statement that strongly denies misconduct and said they welcomed the investigation. Leonard and his representatives did not respond to requests for comment.
“It’s not fun to be highlighted in this way,” Ballmer said on the latest forum of Sports Business Journal. “Building a great arena to highlight. But that will also pass.”
A Clippers spokesman said Thursday they did not schedule any interviews for Ballmer “at the moment”, but Ballmer told the SBJ forum that he was “very confident…we complied. [by] rule. Therefore, I welcome the investigation that the NBA is doing. He stressed that his investment in ambitions had been fast before reaching a deal with Leonard and that he was not involved in the deal.
The salary cap limits what teams can spend on player pay to ensure parity and prevent the wealthiest team from surpassing smaller market teams to get the best player. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has tried to bypass it as a “main sin.”
In this case, Leonard agreed to a $28 million recognition and marketing work contract for ambitions, which collapsed in March. Allow players to gain separate approvals and other commercial transactions. In this case, in this case, whether the Clippers participated in the arrangement for the deputy trade, rather than just introducing the aspiration executive to Leonard.
The most painful punishment the NBA could impose is to suspend Ballmer for up to one year and to dock the Clippers to their first-round draft pick for up to five years. The team has no first-round picks in 2026 and 2028 and has traded them. During 2032, the confiscation of the remaining draft picks will make it more difficult for Ballmer to realize his championship dream.
Kawhi Leonard played the Clippers game at the Grizzlies in Intuit Dome in Inglewood.
(Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times)
The maximum fine that the league could fine is $7.5 million, which is relative to Ballmer’s estimated net worth of $171 billion. Leonard’s performance was not up to expectations, so even the league was limited in the final two years of the contract and saved the 34-year-old forward’s owed money.
As NBA Commissioner Adam Silver made it clear at a team owner meeting, proving that the Clippers violated the salary cap can be difficult. There are a lot to do in the results of the investigation.
Ballmer, 69, has a strong relationship with Silver. The 2026 NBA All-Star Game is scheduled to be held in Intuit Dome in February, and is a member of the Board of Directors of the League Audit Committee, Ballmer.
Ballmer’s philanthropy has been well established. He and his wife Connie gave billions of dollars through the Ballmer group to improve the economic mobility of children and families in disadvantaged communities. (Balmer Group is one of the foundations sponsoring the Los Angeles Times Early Childhood Education Program.)
Ballmer turned his attention to the Clippers in 2014, buying the team from lost boss Donald Sterling, who was forced to sell for racist comments.
At the time, the price anyone had paid for NBA teams was nearly four times, almost four times.. The franchise has almost tripled its value, estimated at $5.5 billion.
Bankruptcy documents show Wishes paid Leonard $21 million but still owed him $7 million – agreed to a $28 million contract for the company’s recognition and marketing efforts. Boston Sports Magazine reported that Leonard also promised $20 million in aspirational ownership.
Nothing Leonard did on behalf of wishes was recorded. Several former employees told Athletics that Leonard’s deal was a “unappeared” arrangement and that Leonard didn’t have to do any recognition work.
Mike Shuckerow, former volunteer chief operating officer and chief legal officer, told ESPN that he is one of three company executives who signed a declaration that reads: [Aspiration] The team expressed concerns about the high cost of arrangements at that time [with Leonard] and its lack of consistency with Grassation’s brand and business strategy. Despite subsequent marketing efforts, they were eventually discontinued and should not be interpreted as support for the transaction itself. ”
But former Wish CEO Andrei Cherny wrote on X that Leonard’s contract “contains three-page obligations that Leonard must fulfill.
Aspration’s initial funding includes a $50 million investment from Ballmer in December 2021, which he acknowledged. The Clippers also agreed to a 23-year, $300 million sponsorship agreement with Aspirations, but rejected its $1 billion new arena naming rights. Intuit is the creator of QuickBooks, Turbotax and other widely used apps, paying $550 million.
Leonard received $175,000 in quarterly payments from Leonard in December 2022, Dennis J. Clippers declined to comment on Huang’s investment, according to documents obtained by Sports.
According to track and field, Ballmer invested another $10 million in March 2023. The investment led to the last fundraising round, which was almost cash.
The NBA investigation is now trying to determine whether the Clippers intend to violate league rules and slide more money to players who already pay the maximum allowable maximum under the salary cap, which makes this situation different from the motivations that the league envisions teams bypass the salary cap.
Language in the NBA collective bargaining agreement describes that opening the hat is a situation where the team pays players with lower wages than the market and compensates for this by secretly paying him other ways. This way, the team will have more money to pay for other players.
The situation for the Clippers is different because Leonard is the money earned by ambition, the maximum salary paid according to the salary cap rule, rather than the way to create a cap space for teammates.
Ballmer admitted to ESPN that he introduced Leonard to aspiring executives, but until the team agreed to a contract with Leonard and reached a $300 million sponsorship deal with Aspiration.
“We’ve done Kawhi’s work, we’ve done ambition,” Ballmer said. “These deals are locked and loaded. Then they do ask to introduce it to Kawhi, and according to the rules, we can introduce sponsors to athletes. We can’t get involved.”
Ballmer insists he knows nothing about the details of the endorsement agreement, and in fact, the team must stay away from negotiations between the players they acknowledge and the company.
Michael McCann, a sports law expert and visiting professor at Harvard University, said the investigation will focus on whether Ballmer’s investment in ambition is the company’s turn and awarding a million investment to Leonard.
Silver said the investigation must prove that the Clippers knew or participated in Leonard’s deal.
Some experts believe Ballmer is entering the detector with a powerful image and can maintain the detection based on the results of the investigation. “He did a great job and his charming fans and sponsors might be in his favor as he moves forward,” said David Carter, a USC sports business professor and head of the sports business group.
Silver says the NBA will revisit its investment and endorsement rules due to allegations involving the Clippers, Ballmer and Leonard
Around the league, it is believed that if the NBA does find misconduct, the silver will have to take action.
“The only thing I heard in the league is that they hope the league is really hard to lower, to stop other teams [circumventing the salary cap]An NBA executive said he asked to speak freely on anonymously. Because without a massive fine, other teams will start doing this, and then the competitive advantage will become a reality and the imbalance will be out of control. ”
Leonard joined the Clippers in July 2019, receiving a three-year, $103 million contract after leading the Toronto Raptors to the NBA title. The Moreno Valley 6-foot-7 striker signed a four-year, $176.3 million extension in 2021, when aspiring to be the minority owners of the company with the Clippers and Ballmer.
A three-year, $153 million extension signed a year ago, Leonard will receive $375 million in career salary payment or sign a contract.
The NBA investigated the allegations that the Clippers paid a deal to Leonard or his representative and uncle Dennis Robertson when they first joined the team in 2019. No misconduct was found, although the Toronto star recently reported that Robertson rejected the robbers’ demands for robbers in an unsuccessful negotiation in the 2019 robbery. This is a newspaper requirement.
Neither Robertson nor Leonard’s agent responded to emails or text messages, requesting comments on endorsement arrangements and aspirations and Robertson’s allegations.
Times worker Broderick Turner contributed to the story.
