Clippers owner Steve Ballmer and his staff had spent the last 12 months loudly insisting they’d done nothing wrong.
The podcast “Pablo Torre Finds Out” first raised questions about payments star forward Kawhi Leonard received from Aspiration Partners without doing any endorsement work to benefit the company on Sept. 3, 2025. The NBA responded by starting an investigation.
In its findings — released Sept. 2 — an independent law firm reported “a pattern of misconduct and multiple significant rules violations” that benefited Leonard, who received $66 million in cash and equity from four companies through agreements facilitated by Ballmer and team executives at the request of Leonard’s uncle and then-agent. Those deals violated the league salary cap, which limits how much teams can pay players. The cap is $164.961 million for the coming season.
The Clippers released two statements that same day, protesting the finding and the stiffest sanctions in NBA history, including a $30-million fine and the loss of five future first-round draft picks. In addition, Ballmer, 69, was banned from all league activities for the next year.
Read more: Steve Ballmer apologizes to fans, says Clippers will comply with NBA sanctions
After immediately calling the NBA’s investigation “biased” and vowing to “vigorously challenge these findings and penalties through every avenue available to us,” the Clippers were silent for 11 days.
On Sunday night, they surrendered.
“I accept responsibility as principal owner,” Ballmer said in a three-paragraph, 172-word statement released by the team. “We are committing to put this chapter behind us. We have communicated to the NBA that we are complying with the penalties assessed by the league, have paid the fine, and are moving forward.”
Mark Francis, an associate teaching professor in sports business at the University of Oregon, said Ballmer’s decision to change course was a smart one — since fighting the penalties would only serve to prolong the scandal in the media, damaging the goodwill Ballmer has built up since buying the team in 2014.
“It’s the right thing to do,” he said. “We’re living in times where people don’t take accountability any more and I was actually impressed that he came out with that.
“Once they acknowledge fault, show some remorse, those kinds of things, then sometimes the penalties will be reduced.”
Read more: Swanson: Clippers avoid a death penalty with Kawhi Leonard trade, but only if they clean house
Daniel Durbin, director of the USC Annenberg Institute of Sports Media and Society, agreed, saying the original pushback “was all lawyer speak” while the decision to accept the penalties was prudent.
“It is a pretty stiff penalty. You’ve got a problem, just pay it off and get rid of it,” Durbin said. “And in a certain respect, Ballmer can pay this and move on. So it may well be for him … it’s not worth it to keep fighting, keep wasting money on that.”
Bloomberg estimates Ballmer’s net worth at $173 billion, making the former Microsoft chief executive the world’s ninth-richest person. He earns $1.2 billion annually from his Microsoft stock dividends alone.
In addition to the loss of draft picks and the fine and suspension levied on Ballmer, the NBA suspended Gillian Zucker, the Clippers president of business operations, for one year without pay and suspended Lawrence Frank, the team’s president of basketball operations, for six months without pay.
Read more: Read the NBA’s investigation of the Clippers, Steve Ballmer, Kawhi Leonard
Leonard, a seven-time All-Star forward and Southern California native, was traded back to the Toronto Raptors this summer. He agreed to pay a $700,000 fine for his role in the Clippers saga and did not contest the sanctions leveled against him but issued a statement of his own in which he placed the blame squarely on the Clippers.
“I accept full responsibility for lapses in judgment by people within my inner circle and regret the distraction this situation has caused the fans and my family,” the statement read. “I entered into my contract with the Clippers as well as the agreements in question in good faith, fully committed to fulfilling my obligations and with no knowledge of any intent on anyone’s part to circumvent the salary cap.”
The Raptors temporarily froze the Leonard trade after the NBA announced Toronto would inherit any penalties assessed to Leonard following its investigation. With Ballmer accepting the NBA penalties, the trade is now moving forward and the Clippers will receive All-Star forward Brandon Ingram, shooting guard Gradey Dick, two first-round draft picks, a pick swap and two second-round picks, building blocks that could help the franchise move forward amid the penalties.
Ballmer’s capitulation may actually be seen as a positive to some Clippers fans, Durbin suggested.
Read more: Plaschke: NBA drops the hammer on The Cheatin’ Clippers, and they can’t shed the stink
“What did he confess to? Trying to kind of work around the rules to make the Clippers a championship team,” he said. “There’s a certain sense in which to Clippers fans the entire brouhaha is proof that he’s trying really hard. So while yes, he did break the rules … saying that you broke some rules to try to make your team a championship team is not in and of itself something that’s going to drive away the fan base.”
“It’s not a good thing,” Durbin added. “It’s an admission that maybe he went too far. … And he was willing to pay to try to make the team better.”
Francis isn’t so sure.
“I think that’s a stretch,” he said. “To violate the payroll system they have, it’s a serious offense. The owners are the ones that have pushed for these cost controls and they have to live up to them.”
Read more: Swanson: Kawhi Leonard is a Hall of Fame scam artist who deserves Clippers fans’ boos
The question now becomes can the Clippers actually become better as they deal with the penalties.
L.A.’s No. 2 NBA team, well behind the Lakers in popularity and success, the Clippers have finished higher than fourth in the Pacific Division standings just once since Ballmer’s first season as owner in 2014-15 and have reached the conference finals only once. The team finished ninth in the conference last season, missing the postseason, and it hasn’t advanced beyond the first round of the NBA playoffs since 2021.
But the Lakers are in transition under new ownership and are without LeBron James for the first time since 2018, leaving the Clippers with a narrow window to win over new fans.
“They have to be able to threaten to be a championship team before you can say that they can take advantage of this moment,” Durbin said. “There’s the opportunity theoretically, but it’s really more about how smart they are on the draft picks, how smart they are on building the team.”
Times Sports Editor Iliana Limón Romero and staff writer Mirjam Swanson contributed to this report.
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