Mark Cuban sides with Steve Ballmer amid Clippers’ Kawhi Leonard Aspiration controversy

Former Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is weighing in on the Clippers’ ongoing controversy involving Kawhi Leonard’s $28 million endorsement deal with Aspiration. And while some are skeptical of Clippers owner Steve Ballmer, Cuban says he’s siding with him.

“It’s not even plausible to you that this is a deal between Uncle Dennis and these two guys at the top?” Cuban asked Pablo Torre, who first reported the details of Leonard’s questionable “no-show” contract.

Torre replied, “I think the person who is most likely to have zero idea that he was under an Aspiration contract was Kawhi Leonard.”

Cuban wasn’t convinced Ballmer had a hand in it.

“If your reporting is right and Steve Ballmer knew, then it’s over, right? It’s over,” Cuban said. “He’s toast. It’s far worse than Joe Smith. But just because someone says Steve Ballmer knew doesn’t mean he knew.”

Ballmer, for his part, told ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne that he only introduced Leonard to Aspiration executives in November 2021 and had nothing to do with the deal that followed.

“I made the introduction. That was it,” Ballmer said. “We were done with Kawhi. We were done with Aspiration. They did their deal on their own. We weren’t involved.”

‘Absolute toast’

Cuban argued that if Ballmer knowingly broke the rules, it wouldn’t stop with him.

“Lawrence Frank has been through it forever,” Cuban said of the Clippers’ president of basketball operations. “If Steve Ballmer did tell Lawrence and the assistant GMs, they’re toast too, their careers are toast. Absolute toast. And there’s a 99 percent chance that at some point it comes out, you know, as they try to protect their career.”

He also suggested Leonard’s agent would face serious trouble if proven complicit.

“The agent is going to be in deep sh*t as well, if it ever comes out,” Cuban said. “And so you’ve got a multi-billion dollar franchise at risk. You’ve got the general manager’s job. You’ve got the agent’s job. You’ve got Uncle Dennis who has no leverage whatsoever.”

Cuban doubts foul play

Cuban explained that if Ballmer truly knew Aspiration was a scam, he would have moved quickly to cover his tracks.

“If Ballmer was involved and he just immediately squared the circle, to use your term, the minute things went sour, he’s a f***ing moron,” Cuban told Torre. “Because you don’t leave this outstanding debt out there. Particularly once you see that they’re on a path to going broke and you know creditors are going to become public. He’s leaving himself so wide open in a way that he’s going to be smart enough not to be if he’s truly breaking the rules.”

Ballmer has made a similar point, saying he was duped along with others.

“These were guys who committed fraud. They conned me. They conned me,” Ballmer said. “I made an investment in these guys thinking it was on the up-and-up, and they conned me at this stage.”

Team Ballmer

Ultimately, Cuban said he trusts Ballmer’s side of the story because of the timing and the oversight involved. The $300 million sponsorship Aspiration signed with the Clippers in 2021 would have required league approval.

And once federal regulators started investigating the company in 2024, Cuban is convinced the NBA looked closely.

“The minute Aspiration was under investigation, I guarantee you the NBA took a hard look at it,” Cuban said. “If Ballmer did something illicit and under the table to work around the salary cap, then he’s got to be sh*tting bricks.

“At that point he’s the dumbest human being on the planet because he trusted these scammers to do something he knew was against all NBA rules. I just don’t see that happening. The NBA would have found it easily.”

Cuban admitted even sharp executives can get duped, himself included.

“Everybody’s scammable,” he said. “But I don’t see in any way, shape, or form that all those things could happen here.”