The NBA has delivered one of its harshest penalties in years against the Los Angeles Clippers, taking away five first-round draft picks, fining billionaire owner Steve Ballmer $30 million and suspending the former Microsoft CEO for one year after a league probe into improper payments connected to All-Star forward Kawhi Leonard, officials announced Wednesday.
In its statement, the league said investigators uncovered “a pattern of misconduct” and several major violations by a Clippers franchise it described as a repeat offender when it comes to rules designed to prevent salary cap circumvention.
Leonard has been ordered to repay $700,000 in restitution tied to improper benefits that he and his uncle and representative, Dennis Robertson, received from the Clippers. Still, the NBA will not void any of Leonard’s contracts as a result of the investigation. Robertson, however, has been barred from conducting any business with the league.
The Clippers had recently reached an agreement to send Leonard back to the Toronto Raptors, the franchise he led to the 2019 NBA championship, but that trade was paused while the league’s investigation played out over the summer. Leonard’s destination for the 2026-27 NBA season remains uncertain.
The punishment immediately drew comparisons to one of the most famous salary cap scandals in league history, when former NBA commissioner David Stern stripped the Minnesota Timberwolves of five first-round picks in 2000 after determining the team had arranged an illegal deal to compensate forward Joe Smith.
The Clippers and Ballmer had been under NBA scrutiny since the allegations were first reported nearly a year ago on Pablo Torre’s podcast. Investigators examined claims that the franchise helped arrange a secret side agreement for Leonard as a way to work around salary cap restrictions. The Clippers have consistently denied wrongdoing, and Ballmer has said he was unaware of Leonard’s alleged $21 million “no-show” endorsement arrangement with the now-collapsed financial services company Aspiration.
The NBA has taken five first-round picks from the Los Angeles Clippers and fined billionaire owner Steve Ballmer $30 million
Kawhi Leonard emerged from the year-long NBA investigation with most of his earnings still protected
Torre made the claim against the Clippers by citing a 2025 bankruptcy filing that names the team and a company owned by Leonard under the list of creditors for Aspiration QFZ, LLC, a subsidiary of fintech and sustainability brand Aspiration Partners Inc.
Torre claimed to have contracts showing Aspiration QFZ, LLC entered into a $28 million ‘no-show’ agreement with Leonard’s company, KL2 Aspire LLC, and later claimed – following a report from the Boston Sports Journal – that Leonard also received a separate $20million ‘side deal’ from Aspiration.
Ballmer invested $50million in Aspiration.
The bankruptcy filing from federal court in Delaware, obtained by Our News Outlet, also shows unsecured claims of $30 million and $7 million for the Clippers and Leonard’s company, KL2 Aspire LLC, respectively.
And while Ballmer said he was ’embarrassed’ that he didn’t pick up on any financial trouble from Aspiration, he defended his and the Clippers actions and said they ‘weren’t involved’ in the company’s deal with Leonard.
Aspiration Partners Inc. co-founder Joe Sanberg pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud in 2025 for what authorities described as a $248million scheme to defraud investors.
The team, as it pointed out in a statement, ‘ended its relationship with Aspiration years ago, during the 2022-23 season, when Aspiration defaulted on its obligation.’
Furthermore, as reported by Torre, Aspiration QFZ’s alleged payments to KL2 Aspire were sent to Robertson, Leonard’s uncle and advisor, who was previously investigated by the NBA in 2019 for allegedly requesting impermissible benefits for his nephew and himself.
Daily Mail obtained a federal bankruptcy filing showing unsecured claims of $30 million and $7 million for the LA Clippers and Leonard’s company, KL2 Aspire LLC, respectively
That 2019 investigation did not find any impermissible benefits going from the Clippers to Leonard or anyone working on his behalf.
A year later, a self-described acquaintance of Leonard and Robertson named Johnny Wilkes sued the Clippers, claiming he was still owed $2.5 million from the team for helping them to sign the former Spurs and Raptors star.
Wilkes, a self-described acquaintance of Robertson, claimed in the lawsuit that Ballmer would ‘fund a $100,000,000.00 marketing campaign for Kawhi Leonard’ and the uncle would get his own Southern California home if the All-Star forward agreed to sign with the Clippers.
That lawsuit was ultimately dismissed and neither the Clippers nor Robertson admitted to any wrongdoing.
