Kawhi Leonard At Risk Of Losing Clippers Contract?

The NBA announced its official investigation into Kawhi Leonard and hired a top law firm to look into this matter. Shortly after the investigation was announced into the accusations, The Athletic's senior NBA writer, Sam Amick, discussed Kawhi Leonard potentially losing his NBA contract as a consequence of the findings in the investigation.  

Amick appeared on The Athletic's 'NBA Daily Show' and spoke about the possibility that the NBA could completely void Leonard's contract with the Clippers. He revealed how he spoke to sources close to Adam Silver that said he considered circumvention of the salary cap as a "cardinal sin" of the NBA. 

“So, if they're going to follow through on that energy during, you know, after this era where they tried to clean up free agency discussions and in the league office's words, ‘to have it not be as messy’ with some of these situations, then I mean, voiding of a player contract is on the table. You know, executive suspensions are on the table.”

“I mean, the contract in and of itself, like, if they can prove that Kawhi was incentivized to not only stay with the Clippers, but to sign team-friendly deals that gave them more flexibility and, you know, by proxy more ability to compete.”

“That runs counter to what Adam has tried to build and cuts at the fabric of the league that he's tried to grow off of David Stern's tenure. And I will add that last part because Joe Smith is one of the litany of examples of David Stern having the iron fist, and Adam has long been accused of being much softer, you know, than his predecessor. And I think this is yet another time, and we're going to see how he plays it.”

Therefore, it is possible that if the league finds evidence that Kawhi Leonard took any concessions, bringing the aforementioned situation to the surface, then he is at risk of losing his NBA contract, potentially. 

However, Kawhi Leonard took the maximum salary he possibly could in every season of his initial contract extension right before this allegedly fraudulent deal. But in 2024, Leonard took less than what could have been the max extension, only with the objective to help the team financially. 

According to Chris Mannix of Sports Illustrated, this deal has raised some eyebrows around the league. 

“But I will tell you what ownership sources have told me over the last few days is that they want to know about the money. In 2021, Kawhi signed at the time what was a full max contract. No issue there. In 2024, he took less than the max." 

"Now, the narrative back then was that he did it to help the team. Great. But if he was getting compensated another way, that’s a different story because the Clippers are a taxpaying team. An extra few million dollars per year that gets multiplied in tax penalties and that gets dispersed to other teams.”

Teams around the league are not happy with the way the Clippers have been accused of doing business. The Mavericks nearly found themselves in the same boat as the Clippers if not for Mark Cuban's business instincts. 

The investigation is anticipated to run into a dead end unless there is some evidence that links Leonard's concessions in 2024 to the deal he got in 2021. It will be interesting to see what the findings of the NBA's investigations are.

In my opinion, Adam Silver will not be as strict as David Stern was, assuming that evidence is found proving Leonard and Steve Ballmer's guilt despite their claiming innocence. If found guilty, Leonard will likely face a suspension, but voiding a contract seems too extreme for Silver, considering his history.