LA Clippers Accused of Massive Salary Cap Scandal Involving Forward Kawhi Leonard

The Los Angeles Clippers, a major National Basketball Association (NBA) team, have been accused of a massive scandal involving forward Kawhi Leonard to avoid exceeding their salary cap.

The Clippers, which maintain their home base at the Crypto.com arena in Los Angeles, are one of the city's two NBA teams, with the other being the famed LA Lakers. However, the Clippers have a much smaller fanbase and have never won a championship.

Now, the team has been accused of creating of the NBA's biggest scandals– paying forward Kawhi Leonard using an external company to avoid exceeding their salary cap. The entire scandal began when sports reporter Pablo Torre uncovered thousands of pages of documents revealing a Clippers plot to skirt their salary cap, releasing the information on his show, "Pablo Torre Finds Out."

The scandal began with Clippers owner Steve Ballmer allegedly making a significant investment into a financial services company known as Aspiration, which focused on sustainability and went bankrupt in April after co-founder Joseph Sanberg was convicted on two counts of wire fraud.

Between 2021 and 2023, Aspiration became a primary sponsor for the Clippers, and a four-year contract for marketing and endorsements was then signed with Kawhi Leonard. However, one clause of the contract confirmed that Leonard would only get paid as long as he remained a player on the Clippers, suggesting additional compensation from the team that was not part of his contract. Furthermore, the contract included several clauses that hinted that Leonard would not be required to work, and Torre confirmed that Leonard never completed any sort of advertisements for the company.

Despite this, Leonard was still paid over $28 million by Aspiration as part of their alleged plan to circumvent the NBA salary cap, allowing Leonard to receive additional pay without receiving it directly from the team. Torre also interviewed an employee of Aspiration's finance department who explicitly confirmed these theories.

Nevertheless, the Clippers have strongly denied the allegations and claimed that the team had zero involvement in Leonard's advertisement deal with Aspiration. As a defense to Ballmer's generous contribution to the company's funding, they claimed that he had been defrauded as well, similar to the situations of various other investors who put money into the company.

If the Clippers were to be found guilty of conducting the scandal, it would have significant implications for the team. According to Article XIII of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, the team could be fined up to $4.5 million for the scandal, up to $7.5 million, forfeiture of draft picks, voiding of player contracts, a fine for Leonard of up to $350,000, a ban preventing Leonard from signing another contract with the Clippers, and a one-year suspension of any team members who participated in the scandal.

The NBA has launched an investigation into the matter, but have refused to say anything other than acknowledgement of the accusations.

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Image credit to NBC News