Many of the demands of Kawhi Leonard’s camp in 2019, when he was looking for a new contract, were impermissible under the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement.
Many of the demands of Kawhi Leonard’s camp in 2019, when he was looking for a new contract, were impermissible under the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement.
Bruce Arthur is a columnist for the Star. Follow him on Twitter: .
Were he still alive, David Stern would entertain potential punishments for the Los Angeles Clippers: the seizure of draft picks, exorbitant fines, maybe the kidnapping of a family member. The late NBA commissioner would probably have called the richest owner in the league into his office and told him he was screwed six ways to Sunday. Stern might even have flipped a desk.
Now, though, NBA commissioner Adam Silver must decide how to handle a blooming scandal involving Clippers owner Steve Ballmer, an allegedly fraudulent tree-planting carbon credit company, and Clippers star Kawhi Leonard, who used to play around these parts. Investigative podcaster Pablo Torre may be the best sports reporter in America right now, and on his show ”” he unearthed a four-year, $28-million (U.S.) contract Leonard signed in 2021 with a headline Clippers sponsor called Aspiration for explicitly no-show work. Aspiration also seemed tightly entwined with Ballmer, one of the world鈥檚 richest men, who had invested $50 million of his own money in the company.
If it looks a lot like salary cap circumvention, which Silver considers a cardinal sin, that鈥檚 probably because it is. According to Torre, the Clippers signed a huge sponsorship deal with Aspiration in 2021, the same year Leonard鈥檚 LLC was founded and he signed a three-year contract extension, and the contract gives Leonard the option to do nothing at all, which he appears to have exercised. It also included a termination clause if he ever left the Clippers.
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Company insiders told Torre the Leonard contract far outstripped other Aspiration celebrity endorsers. It even remained a corporate priority as the carbon-capture company itself descended into financial precarity, bankruptcy, and eventual arrests and plea deals, because Kawhi鈥檚 representative and uncle, Dennis Robertson, kept calling and the relationship with Ballmer was important. One former employee told Torre that, while questioning the Leonard contract, the response was not to ask because 鈥渋t was to circumvent the salary cap lol.鈥
None of these allegations have been tested, and the Clippers denied Ballmer or the team had circumvented the salary cap or engaged in any misconduct. They told Torre鈥檚 program that 鈥渁ny contrary allegation is provably false.鈥
Maybe so, and while teams arrange local sponsorships with athletes all the time, two things stand out: the no-show nature of the job, which is a longtime strategy in Division I athletic programs to circumvent NCAA rules against paying athletes, and Ballmer鈥檚 personal investment. The broad allegations are both fuzzy and clear: Ballmer sent his own money to a company which paid his star player to do nothing as long as he was a Clipper. That doesn鈥檛 look good.
And, frankly, it would take a heroic feat of imagination to think a deal to pay Leonard outside the bounds of the salary cap started in 2021, two years after he left the champion 海角社区官网Raptors in a deal that also netted the Clippers star Paul George from Oklahoma City. (And eventually netted the Thunder聽an NBA title.)
During those negotiations, Leonard remained engaged with 海角社区官网for a great deal of the process. As the Star reported at the time, the Raptors inquired on George and were told the price started with Pascal Siakam, Fred VanVleet, and four unprotected first-round picks, but a deal was never close. The sense was that George, like Leonard, wanted to go home to L.A. And after one particular meeting with the Clippers, Leonard effectively cut off communications with Toronto.
At the time, tales of extracurricular demands abounded. The Athletic鈥檚 Sam Amick reported Uncle Dennis was calling Lakers officials and demanding 鈥減art ownership of the team, a private plane that would be available at all times, a house and 鈥 a guaranteed amount of off-court endorsement money.鈥 All were impermissible under the collective bargaining agreement.
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Sources in 海角社区官网say, in one meeting, Uncle Dennis asked for an ownership stake in the 海角社区官网Maple Leafs, because that way he wasn鈥檛 asking for a piece of the Raptors. It was politely explained to him that both teams were owned by the same company, and that the request was impossible.聽
The league investigated and didn鈥檛 find anything concrete, but issued a warning on free agency rules going forward. If Leonard鈥檚 camp was asking for those perks in 2019 and he chose the Clippers, it seems more than reasonable to wonder whether something other than a return to California was the only factor. And if it was cap circumvention on a player of this magnitude, do we believe it was only $7 million per year? Or that it stopped at Leonard?
All that said, this isn鈥檛 an easy task for the NBA, which announced Wednesday via spokesman Mike Bass that it has launched an investigation. Ballmer is a massive presence in the league: his $2-billion Intuit Dome stadium was privately funded, and will host the NBA all-star game in February. We don鈥檛 know how many owners might be skirting the cap and we don’t know whether this was a significant aberration in the NBA. We don’t know how deep the rabbit hole goes.
Even if you punish Ballmer with the forfeiture of draft picks or fines, the Clippers don鈥檛 control their first-rounder until 2030, and Ballmer is worth somewhere north of $150-billion. What punishment would hurt? David Stern never had to confront owners of this stature.
This is seismic stuff involving the fundamentals of how an already unequal league operates, and where elite players are worth so much more than their salaries, as eye-popping as they are. This feels like a mix of cutthroat AAU recruitment and cloak-and-dagger NCAA shenanigans, mixed with corporate shell games, with mind-bending money at stake.
It’s messy, and it matters. Leonard could have won 海角社区官网another title, at the least. When he left, the history of the NBA irrevocably changed and can鈥檛 ever be set right. So now we’ll either find out what the NBA can prove, or how much it wants to know.
Opinion articles are based on the author鈥檚 interpretations and judgments of facts, data and events. More details
Bruce Arthur is a columnist for the Star. Follow him on Twitter:
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