{"id":464421,"date":"2025-10-14T08:35:55","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T06:35:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/?p=464421"},"modified":"2025-10-14T08:35:55","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T06:35:55","slug":"nba-approved-clippers-300m-aspiration-deal-in-2021-now-under-investigation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/nba-approved-clippers-300m-aspiration-deal-in-2021-now-under-investigation\/","title":{"rendered":"NBA approved Clippers\u2019 $300M Aspiration deal in 2021, now under investigation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p data-start=\"1510\" data-end=\"1846\">Per <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/story\/_\/id\/46584143\/sources-nba-approved-clippers-sponsorship-deal-aspiration-2021\"><strong data-start=\"1514\" data-end=\"1522\">ESPN<\/strong><\/a>, the <strong data-start=\"1528\" data-end=\"1535\">NBA<\/strong> reviewed and <strong data-start=\"1549\" data-end=\"1593\">approved a $300 million sponsorship deal<\/strong> between the <strong data-start=\"1606\" data-end=\"1621\">LA Clippers<\/strong> and <strong data-start=\"1626\" data-end=\"1640\">Aspiration<\/strong> in 2021, months before the green banking firm signed a <strong data-start=\"1696\" data-end=\"1725\">$28 million personal deal<\/strong> with <strong data-start=\"1731\" data-end=\"1748\">Kawhi Leonard<\/strong>. That latter contract has prompted an investigation into possible <strong data-start=\"1815\" data-end=\"1843\">salary cap circumvention<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"1848\" data-end=\"2166\">The 23-year team deal included a <strong data-start=\"1881\" data-end=\"1897\">jersey patch<\/strong> and arena signage and complied with league approval rules. The player deal, however, wasn\u2019t subject to NBA oversight under the <strong data-start=\"2025\" data-end=\"2032\">CBA<\/strong>. The league has since hired <strong data-start=\"2061\" data-end=\"2093\">Wachtell Lipton Rosen &amp; Katz<\/strong> to investigate potential violations involving <strong data-start=\"2140\" data-end=\"2163\">owner Steve Ballmer<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p data-start=\"2168\" data-end=\"2386\">Commissioner <strong data-start=\"2181\" data-end=\"2196\">Adam Silver<\/strong> said the league bears the <strong data-start=\"2223\" data-end=\"2242\">burden of proof<\/strong>, with any disciplinary action ultimately reviewed by a <strong data-start=\"2298\" data-end=\"2320\">neutral arbitrator<\/strong>. The investigation may extend beyond the <strong data-start=\"2362\" data-end=\"2383\">2026 NBA playoffs<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The sponsorship was vetted before Kawhi Leonard\u2019s separate agreement that triggered a salary cap probe<\/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-464421","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\/464421","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=464421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464421\/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=464421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464421"},{"taxonomy":"rumors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rumors?post=464421"},{"taxonomy":"typology","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/typology?post=464421"},{"taxonomy":"posizionamento","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportando.basketball\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posizionamento?post=464421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}