NBA suspends Ballmer for a year over Kawhi Leonard payment scheme
The NBA has suspended Los Angeles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer and team executive Gillian Zucker for a year following an investigation into disguised payments to star player Kawhi Leonard, which investigators tied to a scoreboard contract. The Clippers will also forfeit five future draft picks and pay a $30 million fine.
Following a year-long investigation, the NBA has suspended Los Angeles Clippers owner and former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer for a year, along with the team's president of business operations, Gillian Zucker. The league also ordered the Clippers to forfeit five future draft picks and pay a $30 million fine.
The punishment follows a 35-page report by law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, which found that Ballmer's earlier denials of the team's involvement in a questionable $28 million endorsement deal with player Kawhi Leonard were inaccurate, while Zucker's statements were described as clearly false. Leonard has already accepted a $700,000 fine and a ban for his business manager.
Link to the new arena scoreboard
The report details how Daktronics, the company that won the contract to build a massive digital scoreboard for the Clippers' new Intuit Dome arena, entered into what amounted to a sham endorsement deal with Leonard at the team's suggestion, effectively returning part of the contract's value. According to investigators, a Clippers executive told Daktronics exactly how much to pay Leonard and later asked the company to increase that amount as scoreboard costs rose.
Two other Clippers-affiliated companies, Lockton Insurance and Boingo Wireless, are said to have been involved in funneling an additional $18 million to Leonard, but both refused to fully cooperate with investigators.
Aspiration scandal sparked the probe
The entire investigation began a year ago after the podcast "Pablo Torre Finds Out" exposed ties to fintech startup Aspiration, whose cofounder Joe Sanberg was sentenced to 14 years in prison for defrauding investors of $248 million. The report notes that Aspiration's $7 million annual payment to the Clippers, officially explained as funding for carbon offsets, matched the amount paid to Leonard — and a consultant the team cited confirmed the figure was actually set by the Clippers' budget rather than by his own study.
The Clippers have sent angry letters to the NBA, arguing that a biased investigation triggered by a podcaster's claims cost Ballmer at least $50 million in legal fees and damaged his reputation. Ballmer's lawyers say they are exploring legal options. The investigation is ongoing, with a separate claim about another team partner still under review.
