The NBA Brings The Hammmer Down on the Clippers
The Clippers were caught cheating, and the NBA dropped the hammer on them.
The NBA announced they had found Steve Balmer, the richest owner in the NBA, to be guilty of paying Kawhi Leonard through a third-party charity to get around the league’s salary cap.
The scandal was exposed by Pablo Torre, who revealed that Kawhi was a spokesperson for Aspiration, a private sustainability company. Leonard was paid 28 million dollars despite never publicly speaking about nor promoting the company.
The scheme was that Ballmer was attempting to stack the Clippers with the best possible players, and to do that, he was trying too offer them the most money. The NBA has a team salary cap of roughly 154 million dollars, so to circumvent that he gave 50 million dollars to Aspiration, and they in turn signed a four year 28 million dollar endorsement deal with Kawhi.
Pablo Torre exposed this through his podcast in September of 2025, earning a Pulitzer prize for his reporting. In 2026, he would reveal a similar deal with Daktronics, the company that produces scoreboards and digital billboards.
The NBA fined the Clippers 30 million dollars, and Kawhi 700,000 dollars respectively. They also stripped the team of the next five years worth of first round draft picks, and even banned Steve Ballmer from being in the Clippers stadium while his team plays. This is the largest punishment the NBA has ever given to a team.
While initially vowing to fight the punishment, the Clippers and Steve Ballmer reversed course and accepted the punishment with an apology.
The US Attorney’s Office in Brooklyn has announced an investigation into the Clippers actions and issued subpoenas.
