Los Angeles Clippers’ owner Steve Ballmer is calling on the NBA to investigate other teams accused of circumventing the league’s salary cap in his first comments since being the target of a probe involving Kawhi Leonard’s endorsement deal.
“I’d want the league to investigate, take it seriously. Salary cap circumvention rules are important to the league, and I’d want the league to investigate,” Ballmer told ESPN Thursday.
On Wednesday, podcaster Pablo Torre reported allegations of Ballmer and Leonard circumventing the league’s salary cap with a lucrative $28 million no-show marketing deal with environmental start-up Aspiration.
Ballmer invested $50 million into the San Francisco-based company and had deals lined up for advertising opportunities, and at one point, naming rights for the team’s new Inglewood arena that opened in 2024.
“We were done. We were done with Kawhi, we were done with Aspiration. The deals were all locked and loaded,” Ballmer told the outlet. “Then, they did request to be introduced to Kawhi, and under the rules, we can introduce our sponsors to our athletes. We just can’t be involved.”
The two-time NBA champion was introduced to the company in November 2021, two months after the team inked the $300 million sponsorship deal with Aspiration.
Ballmer claims he, nor the team, had any involvement with the deals between Leonard and the company, and were unaware of any negotiations until the partnership was announced.
“We even found the email that makes the first introduction. It was early November,” Ballmer said. “The introduction got made and then they were off to the races on, on their own. We weren’t involved.
“I eventually learned that they had reached a deal. I have no idea what the deal was,” he added.
Aspiration also gave Leonard a “side-deal” worth $20 million, Torre reported on Friday, citing the Boston Sports Journal.
A former Clippers employee told Torre that Ballmer allegedly instructed staffers not to question Leonard’s deal because it was to “circumvent the salary cap.
Ballmer says he was conned by the company, as his mere investment got him less than three percent of the Aspiration used to legitimize the company to other potential investors.
“I had no board seat. I had no control. Heck, it was a fraudulent company. It’s possible nobody had any control,” he said.
Aspiration co-founder Joe Sanberg pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud for defrauding investors and lenders of more than $248 million, the Justice Department announced in August.
He faces up to 40 years in prison.
“These were guys who committed fraud. Look, they conned me. They conned me. I made an investment in these guys thinking it was on the up-and-up, and they conned me at this stage. I have no ability to predict why they might have done anything they did, let alone the specific contract with Kawhi,” Ballmer said.
“I reviewed, my staff reviewed primarily fraudulent financials,” he said. “Now, should I have sniffed it out? Maybe I feel embarrassed and kind of silly that I didn’t sniff it out, but I didn’t,” Ballmer said. “I made the investment. A lot of other smart investors didn’t sniff it out either.”
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