Clippers don't quite deny allegations of wrongdoing at media day

When asked whether he ever did anything to earn his tens of millions from Aspiration, Leonard made a similar non-denial.

"I understand the full contract and the services I had to do," Leonard said, though the contract specified that Leonard could opt out of any services the company asked for. "I don’t deal with conspiracies or the clickbait analyst or journalism that’s going on. So, that’s what it is. I don’t think it’s accurate."

Did Leonard elaborate on what was inaccurate in the "clickbait analyst"? He did not.

Clippers still have no believable explanations

The problem for the Clippers is that they don't have any alternative narrative for why a team sponsor would offer its most important player $48M to do nothing, in a deal that was never publicized. Nor have they explained why their team owner invested heavily in the now-bankrupt company when it was clearly in financial trouble, or why his co-owner also invested as the company was failing, coincidentally while they were paying Leonard yet laying off 20 percent of their staff.

Frank won't deny that Robertson didn't ask for exactly the kind of illegal deal the Clippers are accused of giving Leonard. Leonard won't explain how much Aspiration paid him or give a single example of work he did for his massive payout. Owner Steve Ballmer said the team cut ties with Aspiration in the 2022-23 season, yet he hasn't explained why he still invested $10M in the company in March 2023, and donated $1.875M to disgraced Aspiration founder Joe Sanberg's charity, the Golden State Opportunity Foundation, in November 2024.

It's hard to trust the Clippers when they don't bother to refute the charges of malfeasance. Even Leonard made sure to say, "None of us did no wrongdoing," a double negative that can be interpreted as, "We did wrongdoing."

There's enough smoke that the Clippers need to explain why there was no fire. Right now, they'll only acknowledge they knew the rules they're accused of breaking. That's not going to be good enough for the NBA's investigation.