The NBA brought the hammer down on the Clippers for violating the league’s salary cap circumvention rules by “initiating off-court income opportunities” for star forward Kawhi Leonard.
The franchise has been stripped of five first-round picks from 2029-2033. The Clippers were issued a $30 million fine, and the league suspended owner Steve Ballmer (one year), President of Business Operations Gillian Zucker (one year) and President of Basketball Operations Lawrence Frank (six months) for various periods.
The type of punishments that could make the Clippers irrelevant for at least the next half decade.
Los Angeles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer and Kawhi Leonard received different punishments for the Clippers circumventing the league’s salary cap. Getty Images
While the Clippers intend to “vigorously challenge” these league’s findings and penalties, the details of the investigation that led to the Clippers’ punishments are damning.
Leonard is also required to pay the NBA $700,000 for his connections with the violations, while his uncle and former business representative, Dennis Robertson, has been being banned by the NBA from all business dealings for five years.
As part of its announcement, the NBA released the summary report prepared by Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, the law firm that conducted the independent investigation over the last year in the aftermath of the podcast “Pablo Torre Finds Out” producing the first in a series of episodes in September 2025 alleging the Clippers and Ballmer violated the league’s salary cap circumvention rules through deals with now-bankrupt Aspiration.
The report stated the Clippers initiated off-court income opportunities not only between Leonard and Aspiration, but also Boingo Wireless, Daktronics and Lockton Insurance.
There are many details within the 36-page report that builds a mountain of evidence against the Clippers and their personnel.
Damning Evidence on Clippers Misdeeds
Los Angeles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer has been suspended for one year by the NBA. AP Photo/Ryan Sun
Among the evidence were the details surrounding Leonard’s endorsement deal with Daktronics, which were laid out in a section where the report explained its findings on how the Clippers “initiated, facilitated and induced” three of the four companies to enter endorsement deals with Leonard that were tied to consulting deals between the companies and the Clippers.
In the spring of 2020 in response to a request-for-proposal process from the Clippers, according to the NBA’s report, Daktronics started to “compete to obtain a lucrative contract to supply digital scoreboard and signage technology at the Intuit Dome.”
In May 2020, the Clippers told Daktronics that it was the team’s preferred provider for the project, but that the team wanted to agree on a “spend back” arrangement whereby the scoreboard maker would provide some business back to the Clippers – an arrangement that Daktronics told investigators is common in the industry.
The damning part: Zucker “suggested” to a Daktronics senior executive that this “spend back” could be accomplished through an endorsement agreement between Daktronics and Leonard, according to the report. Daktronics believed that “failing to enter into a commercial relationship with Leonard could jeopardize its ability to win the bid for the Intuit Dome.”
The report added that later in May during a call with a senior executive of Daktronics, a senior Clippers’ executive specified the “precise financial terms that the Clippers expected Daktronics to provide to Leonard” in the endorsement deal – $3 million per year for two years – which Daktronics ultimately agreed to pay Leonard in the endorsement deal that was finalized in July 2020.
In February 2021, the aforementioned senior Clippers’ executive approached Daktronics again, according to the report, telling the company that “because the team had decided to increase the amount it would spend on the scoreboard Daktronics should correspondingly” increase the amount it’d pay Leonard. Daktronics agreed to increase its second-year payment to Leonard by $2 million “after some negotiation – and again based on its concern that failing to comply could jeopardize its business with the Clippers.”
The report drove the point home by stating: “the impetus to provide this additional $2 million payment to Mr. Leonard did not come from Daktronics. Instead, it originated entirely from the Clippers.”
Raptors forward Kawhi Leonard, posing with his uncle Dennis Robertson and his mother, Kim Robertson, is expected to return to Toronto via trade. Dennis Robertson has been banned from the NBA for five years for his role in the Clippers’ cap circumvention. AP
The report added that there’s evidence of the Clippers funding an endorsement deal for Leonard – and that the Clippers’ misconduct “may have been even more severe” than violating the NBA’s rules with Leonard’s deals with Boingo, Daktronics and Lockton.
As the report states, the timing of those three endorsement deals with Leonard coincided with “each of the companies receiving multi-million dollar payments from the Clippers, purportedly in connection with business to be provided by these companies to the team.” The report added that those payments may have been made to fund Leonard’s endorsement deals.
“A credible witness” who had direct knowledge with one of the company’s consulting agreements with the Clippers who said the consulting deal was “a ruse, designed and intended to be a vehicle for the team to provide the company with funds to be paid to Mr. Leonard.”
The witness added that the company agreed to such a “sham consulting agreement” because they were promised “to win a much larger services contract with the Clippers.” The report added this
information came to investigators “late in the investigation” and “additional steps are
ongoing to corroborate it.”
The Clippers are arguing they are not guilty, stating the investigation was “heavily biased” that sought to “justify a predetermined narrative rather than facts and evidence.”
Now, if they choose to and are capable of doing so, it’ll be on the Clippers to counter with their own evidence of innocence.
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