The NBA stripped the LA Clippers of five first-round draft picks and fined the team $30 million on Wednesday, Sept. 2. The league also suspended owner Steve Ballmer for one year over salary cap circumvention tied to Kawhi Leonard's endorsement deals.
Leonard, a two-time NBA Finals MVP, must pay the league $700,000. The NBA's announcement called the Clippers "a prior offender of the salary cap circumvention rules."
The forfeited picks span the 2029 through 2033 NBA Drafts, one per year.
Commissioner Adam Silver said in a statement he was deeply disappointed by what he called flagrant rule violations and institutional failures by the Clippers. The severity of the penalties, Silver said, reflects the seriousness of the violations.
The penalties followed a nearly yearlong investigation by law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. The probe found the Clippers arranged endorsement agreements between Leonard and four companies doing business with the team: Aspiration Partners, Boingo Wireless, Daktronics and Lockton Insurance. The team induced those companies to sign Leonard by offering them Clippers business in return, according to the league's findings.
The NBA also found the Clippers paid personal expenses on behalf of Leonard and his representatives. The team failed to report improper solicitations made through Leonard's then-business manager and uncle, Dennis Robertson.
Robertson was fired by Leonard in June 2026, Yahoo Sports reported. The NBA banned Robertson from conducting business with NBA teams for five years.
Two top Clippers executives also face suspensions. President of business operations Gillian Zucker was suspended without pay for one year for what the league called direct culpability in the endorsement arrangements and for providing false and misleading statements to investigators. President of basketball operations Lawrence Frank was suspended without pay for six months for his involvement and for approving impermissible expenses for Leonard and his family.
The Clippers and their personnel must operate under a league compliance and monitoring program for five years.
The team disputed the findings. In a statement, the Clippers said they reject the NBA's conclusions and called the investigation biased. The team said it plans to challenge the penalties through arbitration.
Leonard, through new agent Harrison Gaines, struck a different tone. "I accept full responsibility for lapses in judgment by people within my inner circle and regret the distraction this situation has caused the fans and my family," he said in a statement reported by KTLA.
The investigation began in September 2025 after journalist Pablo Torre reported on a $28 million endorsement contract between Leonard and Aspiration Fund Adviser LLC, a company that later filed for bankruptcy. Aspiration co-founder Joseph Sanberg was sentenced to 14 years in federal prison earlier in 2026 after pleading guilty to defrauding investors and lenders of at least $248 million, Spectrum News reported. Torre won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the scandal.
Daktronics, which built the $100-million Halo Board videoboard at the Clippers' Intuit Dome, also hired Leonard to a multimillion-dollar endorsement deal for which he did no work, according to Los Angeles Times reporting. On Wednesday, Daktronics CFO Howard Atkins disclosed on an earnings call that the SEC has opened its own investigation into the company concerning Leonard.
This is not the Clippers' first cap violation under Ballmer, who bought the team for $2 billion in August 2014 after serving as Microsoft's CEO. The franchise was fined $250,000 in 2015 for offering unauthorized business opportunities to free agent DeAndre Jordan, including a $200,000-per-year deal with Lexus.
Leonard's pending trade to the Toronto Raptors had been on hold during the investigation. The Raptors have said they still want Leonard. In his statement, Leonard said he is focused on closing this chapter as he returns to Toronto, where he won an NBA title in 2019.
The NBA and the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) agreed the penalties are final and binding. The 2026-27 regular season is scheduled to begin in October.
