Over the summer, journalist Pablo Torre published a story that rocked the NBA world. Clippers owner and former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer allegedly used the climate-forward company Aspiration to secretly pay Kawhi Leonard’s contract extension in order to circumvent the NBA salary cap.
On Tuesday, Aspiration confirmed Torre’s story by filing a lawsuit against the billionaire owner.
Aspiration, now known as Catona Climate, is a company that works with companies to help reduce climate emissions on our planet with solutions such as reforestation (planting trees) and sustainable farming alternatives.
According to the lawsuit and USA Today, Steve Ballmer was using the company to funnel money to pay Kawhi Leonard and circumvent the NBA salary cap. Ballmer also paid off Aspiration co-founder Joe Sanberg to keep this a secret for years.
“Ballmer used the company to secretly funnel millions of dollars to NBA star player Kawhi Leonard… It served Ballmer’s interest in getting extra money to Leonard so he could circumvent the salary cap, beat out the competition, and re-sign his team’s superstar player… Ballmer was complicit in and aided and abetted Sanberg’s fraud for his own self-serving purpose. Ballmer publicly endorsed Catona and infused over $50 million into the company… Plaintiffs allege that Ballmer transferred other funds to (Aspiration) to keep the company afloat and buy Sanberg’s support, cooperation, and silence about the secret deal with Leonard.”
Additionally, ESPN’s Baxter Holmes reported that Sanberg pled guilty to two counts of wire fraud back in October, “defrauding investors out of $248 million… each count facing a maximum of 20 years in prison.”
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It is rather bizarre that the league’s richest owner and one of the wealthiest men on the planet would go through such extremes to pay Kawhi Leonard. Catona validated Pablo Torre’s claims on Tuesday as Torre reported that Steve Ballmer paid Kawhi $28 million for no-show jobs.
What Happens Next For Steve Ballmer And Los Angeles Clippers?
Now that Torre’s story is officially confirmed, the NBA has to enforce punishment on the Clippers. The Clippers are in their 2nd year at their new $2 billion stadium in Inglewood and will host the next NBA All-Star Game in February.
Many have suggested the Clippers should lose the right to host this year’s All-Star Game, but Silver has denied this course of action, according to USA Today. Silver said, “There’s no contemplation of moving the All-Star game.”
While the NBA investigation is still ongoing, there has to be some sort of punishment for circumventing the league’s salary cap. If Silver does not want to move the All-Star game, there has to be a more severe punishment for this brazen act of rule-breaking.
Could the Clippers lose draft picks? Should they receive a postseason ban? It is reasonable that both options are on the table, and even more extreme options are on the table.
Silver could force Steve Ballmer to sell the team like he did with former Clippers owner Donald Sterling, or could even void Kawhi’s extension altogether and make him a free agent.
The harshest possible punishment would be to force the Clippers to relocate to Seattle or Las Vegas. There have been rampant talks of expansion, and the Clippers have a very weak fanbase, so they are certainly one of the top options to move elsewhere. However, despite having one of the weakest fan bases in all of sports, the Clippers are unlikely to be going anywhere due to the new $2 billion stadium the team built in Inglewood.
Forcing Steve Ballmer to step down as owner and the Clippers losing draft capital ultimately feels like the most appropriate punishment for the situation.
What do you think? What should be the Clippers’ punishment for circumventing the salary cap? Should they be punished at all? What would you do if you were Adam Silver?
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