{"id":203309,"date":"2025-09-05T21:29:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T21:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/203309\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T21:29:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T21:29:09","slug":"clippers-owner-ballmer-welcomes-nba-probe-tells-espn-he-wasnt-involved-in-leonard-endorsement-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/203309\/","title":{"rendered":"Clippers owner Ballmer welcomes NBA probe, tells ESPN he wasn’t involved in Leonard endorsement deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

LOS ANGELES<\/strong> \u2013 Los Angeles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer said in an interview with ESPN<\/a> that he welcomes the NBA’s investigation<\/a> into an alleged circumvention of league salary cap rules, denying any involvement in a $28 million endorsement contract between Kawhi Leonard and a California-based sustainability services company. <\/p>\n

Ballmer said he’d want the NBA to probe another club if it were accused of the same violation.<\/p>\n

\u201cSalary cap circumvention rules are important to the league, and I\u2019d want the league to investigate,\u201d Ballmer told ESPN on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Ballmer also said in the interview that he introduced the six-time All-Star Leonard to the the now-bankrupt green banking business, Aspiration Fund Adviser LLC, that Ballmer once invested $50 million in. Ballmer said he’s been reviewing his interaction with Aspiration as part of his and the Clippers’ cooperation with a U.S. Department of Justice investigation into the company. Co-founder Joseph Sanberg agreed to plead guilty last month after facing federal charges of wire fraud, and prosecutors said he defrauded investors and lenders out of more than $248 million.<\/p>\n

The Clippers strongly denied any rules were broken in a statement issued on Wednesday after the NBA announced its investigation following a report by journalist Pablo Torre that alleged the violation.<\/p>\n

The Clippers announced a $300 million partnership with Aspiration in 2021, about a month after Leonard signed a four-year, $176 million extension. The team ended that relationship after two years because the contract was in default.<\/p>\n

The league \u2014 which previously looked into claims that Leonard\u2019s representatives asked for certain perks that would be considered cap circumventions when he was a free agent several years ago \u2014 can issue stiff penalties if cap rules are found to have been broken by a team. That could include a fine of up to $7.5 million, the voiding of contracts and the forfeiture of future draft picks.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/NBA<\/a><\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOS ANGELES \u2013 Los Angeles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer said in an interview with ESPN that he welcomes…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":203310,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[112169,3370,1260,33249,62,49616,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-203309","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-joseph-sanberg","9":"tag-kawhi-leonard","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-pablo-torre","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-steve-ballmer","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115153821100651366","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=203309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/203309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/203310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=203309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=203309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=203309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}