Clippers face questions over dubious $28 million Leonard received from team sponsor

The Los Angeles Clippers and owner Steve Ballmer are under scrutiny over an unconventional payment made to star Kawhi Leonard by a company that once had a $300 million sponsorship deal with the team.

Reporting by Pablo Torre on his show Pablo Torre Finds Out makes claims that Leonard received a mysterious $28 million payment from Aspiration Partners, Inc., a company that entered into a lucrative sponsor partnership with the Clippers in 2021.

That was about the same time that the All-Star forward signed a max contract extension with the NBA team.

(Photo by Fernando Medina/NBAE via Getty Images)

According to Torre, the deal between Leonard and Aspiration amounted to a “no-show” job for the basketball star. At the time Leonard inked a deal to play for Balmer’s Clippers, some NBA observers questioned the sweetheart deal the team got him for.

It was shocking to many that Leonard agreed to be a Clipper rather than to test the market and possibly earn more.

The NBA operates with a strict salary cap designed to level the competitive balance in the league

Teams cannot make side deals with players, nor can they offer any type of perks to sweeten a contract and lure players. Allegedly, the Aspiration contract could have violated league salary cap rules if it was intended to serve as “sweetener” for his NBA services to the team.

Aspiration allegedly paid $28 million to Leonard in 2021 under a services contract in which the athlete could choose to promote the brand by making appearances, wearing gear to promote the company, or by making posts on social media to tout the brand.

Reportedly, Leonard never did any of those things

In fact, according to Torre, the contract between him and Aspiration said he could choose not to.

Torre also claims Aspiration still owes Leonard $7 million under terms of the deal, a figure that Kawhi’s famous uncle/adviser Dennis Robertson has apparently demanded from the company even as it faces crisis.

Ballmer made a $50 million investment in Aspiration in 2021, the same year the company entered into the expensive contract deal with Leonard.

At the time, Aspiration held the naming rights and “founder sponsorship” status with the Clippers. Its name was on the back of every seat in the NBA arena.

The Clippers have issued a statement denying any wrongdoing

“Neither Mr. Ballmer nor the Clippers circumvented the salary-cap or engaged in any misconduct related to Aspiration,” the Clippers said in a statement released this week. “Any contrary assertion is provably false: The team ended its relationship with Aspiration years ago, during the 2022-23 season, when Aspiration defaulted on its obligations.

“Neither the Clippers nor Mr. Ballmer was aware of any improper activity by Aspiration or its co-founder until after the government instituted its investigation. The team and Mr. Ballmer stand ready to assist law enforcement in any way they can.”

Mark Cuban, who formerly owned a large portion of the Dallas Mavericks, has spoken out in support of Ballmer in a social media post. He intimated that Ballmer would not do something to break league rules.

Torre claims Ballmer invested $50 million in Aspiration, a company that promised to equal out the carbon footprint of many large corporations by planting trees. In 2021 the company came under investigation by federal authorities.

In 2025, co-founder Joe Sanberg was arrested under suspicion of fraud. He pled guilty to two fraud charges in August and awaits sentencing. Aspiration filed for bankruptcy in March of this year.

As much as half a billion may have been defrauded from its investors

According to audio from interviews conducted by Torre, a former Aspiration employee claims that paying Leonard was a priority for the company even as it faced allegations of investor fraud.

It’s unclear what the direct connection is between Ballmer and the reported deal between Aspiration and Leonard. If there was an agreement that money would be funneled to Leoanrd through Aspiration as a form of compensation from the Clippers outside of the NBA salary cap, that would be an egregious violation.

In 1999, the Timberwolves were penalized harshly when it emerged that the team had made financial promises to free agent Joe Smith outside of the salary cap.

The NBA took five draft picks from the team and also slapped the organization with fines and suspensions of front office personnel.

Under current NBA rules, the league office can issue a fine as large as $7.5 million and void contracts if a team is found to have broken salary cap rules. The NBA has announced that it is investigating the claims made by Torre, who frequently writes for The Athletic and appears on Pardon the Interruption on ESPN.

Further complicating the issue is the fact that Ballmer is the richest owner in the NBA. He is reportedly one of the ten richest people in the world, and has spent over a billion dollars on the Clippers when you account for the money allocated to a new arena, improvements to the front office, and player contracts.

How difficult would it be for NBA commissioner Adam Silver to slap a punishment on Ballmer, who wields tremendous power in the sport?