NBA Announces Verdict on Clippers Owner Steve Ballmer in Kawhi Leonard Investigation

Pablo Torre’s release of internal Clippers marketing emails complicated the organization’s defense in a nearly year-long salary-cap investigation. It showed staff allegedly coordinated promotional appearances for Kawhi Leonard tied to a previously undisclosed Daktronics sponsorship. This week, the league finally weighed in with its own report on the central figure at the top of that organization.

The NBA has found no evidence that Clippers owner Steve Ballmer funneled money through team sponsors to pay Leonard in order to circumvent the salary cap, according to ESPN’s Don Van Natta Jr., Baxter Holmes and Ramona Shelburne. They cited three people with knowledge of recent discussions between the league and the team.

It marks the most significant finding to emerge from an investigation that’s dragged on for nearly a full year.

The finding clears Ballmer specifically of the most serious version of the allegation: personally directing money through sponsors to Leonard above the max salary. It does not clear the Clippers organization as a whole.

According to the same sources, the league is now focused on whether the team’s role in introducing Leonard to sponsors like Aspiration and Daktronics itself violated rules against salary-cap circumvention. And whether the organization is guilty of “failure to supervise” its own employees.

It remains unclear what specific rule would apply or what penalties the team could face if found responsible.

The Clippers addressed the finding in a statement to ESPN:

“We introduced players, including Kawhi Leonard, to companies with which we had business relationships. Making introductions between players and team partners is both an ordinary practice by NBA teams and a common request of players and representatives,” the team said, adding it did not “negotiate or dictate” the terms of Leonard’s endorsement deals.

The statement continued: “The fact that a player has an endorsement relationship with a company that also does business with his team is not evidence of salary-cap circumvention.”

League rules do permit teams to connect players with sponsors. It reportedly restricts that involvement to simply providing contact information rather than actively managing the relationship afterward. That is now under scrutiny given the internal emails Torre published showing Clippers staff repeatedly following up on scheduling.

League spokesman Mike Bass said the ESPN story “contains numerous and significant inaccuracies,” without specifying which parts of the report he disputed, while confirming the investigation remains ongoing and incomplete.

Why the Kawhi Leonard Trade to Toronto Is Back on Track

Leonard’s previously agreed trade to the Toronto Raptors had been placed on hold once the investigation began. The Raptors were wary of inheriting any punishment tied to the outcome.

With Ballmer himself now cleared of the most serious allegation, reports suggest that the path toward completing that trade has cleared considerably. Even as the organizational question about the Clippers’ own conduct remains unresolved.

Should the league ultimately find wrongdoing on the team’s part, ESPN reported that any dispute over resulting penalties could proceed to arbitration. An arbitrator would have the power to compel further document production, witness testimony and discovery.

Even with Monday’s finding, the saga is far from a clean resolution for the franchise as a whole.