{"id":458321,"date":"2025-09-04T08:13:01","date_gmt":"2025-09-04T06:13:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/?p=458321"},"modified":"2025-09-04T08:13:01","modified_gmt":"2025-09-04T06:13:01","slug":"clippers-under-nba-investigation-for-kawhi-leonards-28m-endorsement-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/clippers-under-nba-investigation-for-kawhi-leonards-28m-endorsement-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"Clippers under NBA investigation for Kawhi Leonard\u2019s $28M endorsement deal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-start=\"82\" data-end=\"319\">The <strong data-start=\"86\" data-end=\"110\">Los Angeles Clippers<\/strong> and owner <strong data-start=\"121\" data-end=\"138\">Steve Ballmer<\/strong> are under scrutiny after allegations that they <strong data-start=\"186\" data-end=\"221\">circumvented the NBA salary cap<\/strong> with a $28 million \u201cno-show job\u201d endorsement for <strong data-start=\"271\" data-end=\"288\">Kawhi Leonard<\/strong>, per <strong data-start=\"294\" data-end=\"316\">Baxter Holmes\/ESPN<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"321\" data-end=\"623\">According to documents obtained by <strong data-start=\"356\" data-end=\"371\">Pablo Torre<\/strong>, Leonard signed a four-year deal with the bankrupt company <em data-start=\"431\" data-end=\"443\">Aspiration<\/em>, which Ballmer had invested $50 million in through his LLC. A clause tied Leonard\u2019s payments to his presence with the Clippers, raising red flags of potential cap circumvention.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"625\" data-end=\"893\">The Clippers denied wrongdoing, calling the claims \u201cabsurd,\u201d and stressed that Leonard\u2019s endorsement was independent. The NBA has <strong data-start=\"755\" data-end=\"782\">opened an investigation<\/strong>, with penalties ranging from multi-million-dollar fines to the forfeiture of draft picks and contract voids.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"895\" data-end=\"1145\">The case recalls the Timberwolves\u2019 infamous <strong data-start=\"939\" data-end=\"960\">Joe Smith scandal<\/strong> in 2000, which cost Minnesota five first-round picks. With Leonard under contract until 2027, the outcome of this probe could have serious implications for both player and franchise.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1147\" data-end=\"1212\" data-is-last-node=\"\" data-is-only-node=\"\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/story\/_\/id\/46150134\/sources-nba-all-star-game-2-usa-teams-1-world-team\"><em data-start=\"1147\" data-end=\"1161\">Source: ESPN<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Los Angeles Clippers and owner Steve Ballmer are under scrutiny after allegations that they circumvented the NBA salary cap<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":146,"featured_media":410304,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_spbk_hide_featured":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[399],"tags":[],"rumors":[],"typology":[],"posizionamento":[],"class_list":["post-458321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nba"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2024\/10\/Los-Angeles-Clippers.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/146"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=458321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458321\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/410304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=458321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=458321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=458321"},{"taxonomy":"rumors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rumors?post=458321"},{"taxonomy":"typology","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/typology?post=458321"},{"taxonomy":"posizionamento","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posizionamento?post=458321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}