The NBA Just Brutally Botched the Kawhi Leonard Investigation

After a multi-month investigation which halted the trade of two-time Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard returning to the Toronto Raptors, the NBA has found both Leonard and Los Angeles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer did not illegally funnel money through mock sponsorships to act around the salary cap to pay Leonard more money.

This ruling is absolutely ludicrous. There is no other way to put it. Not only was there a plethora of evidence pointing to both Leonard and Ballmer’s wrongdoing, but in ignoring these violations, the NBA just allowed a new form of illegal tampering which will certainly be exploited league-wide. 

To back my point and not make baseless claims, here is the overwhelming evidence the NBA ignored.

The Leonard Family List of Requests:

In the summer of 2019, Leonard was coming off his best season, leading the Raptors to their first title in franchise history over the Golden State Warriors. Leonard was the premier free agent in 2019, drawing interest from both LA teams, coming down to the wire between choosing to return to Toronto, or join the Lakers or Clippers.

On July 10 of that year, Leonard signed with the Clippers on the same night they traded for fellow All-Star Paul George to form a new dynamic duo. The move shocked the NBA world as it created a new supposed super team.

Lakers fans in particular were shocked that he would choose George over teaming up with LeBron James and Anthony Davis both in their prime.

The reason why he chose the Clippers over the Lakers has been made apparent after an article from ESPN’s Baxter Holmes on September 17, 2025. In it, he reveals that in negotiations, Leonard’s uncle and representative, Dennis Robertson, made egregious demands of teams offering Leonard.

Those demands included “Part ownership of the team, access to a private plane, a house and guaranteed off-court endorsement money,” a source disclosed.

These are all completely illegal for a player to do; no team is allowed to supply any of those requests to a player, and players are certainly not allowed to ask for it. If Leonard and Ballmer did no wrong, then why did Robertson make those demands in the first place?

False Aspiration’s:

In September 2021, podcaster Pablo Torre revealed on his show Pablo Torre Finds Out, he uncovered that Ballmer made a $50 million investment from his personal LLC into Aspiration, a supposed environmentally friendly digital bank. They released mutual funds that people could invest in, claiming they would invest in green and ethical companies, even though later investigations proved those claims false.

They also committed to planting trees to offset carbon emissions, claiming to have planted 35 million trees. An investigation by the United States Department of Justice revealed they had only planted 12 million.

In October 2025, co-founder Joe Sanberg even pleaded guilty to defrauding both banks and investors out of a reported $248 million. After his initial arrest in March of that year, the company went into bankruptcy. Ballmer did write a letter to the judge during Sanberg’s sentencing arguing against a lenient sentence after claiming he himself was defrauded out of $60 million, but in no way does that clear him of wrongdoing.

So how does this tie into Kawhi Leonard?

Leonard’s Secret Endorsement:

After Ballmer’s investment in Aspiration in 2021, his team announced a $300 million partnership, conveniently just a month after Leonard signed a four-year $176 million deal to stay with the Clippers.

Torre’s reporting helped him obtain a copy of an endorsement deal to pay Leonard $28 million over four years. During the three years Leonard endorsed the company before their bankruptcy, he made zero appearances nor public endorsements for Aspiration.

They did attempt to make Leonard a mascot essentially, drawing up these horrific sketches of him as a Groot-like figure.