Los Angeles Clippers salary cap scandal

Rare card · No. 68814

In September 2025, sportswriter Pablo Torre revealed that the Los Angeles Clippers of the National Basketball Association (NBA) had avoided the league's salary cap when signing Kawhi Leonard by arranging no-show "endorsement" deals with affiliated firms to pay him tens of millions of dollars of off-court income, in violation of the NBA's collective bargaining agreement. Torre's reporting initially focused on the since-bankrupt financial services firm Aspiration; multiple additional no-show contracts were later uncovered. After a yearlong investigation by the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen and Katz concluded there had been significant violations of NBA salary cap circumvention rules, in September 2026, the NBA levied one of the largest punishments in league history on the Clippers: stripping the team of five first-round picks, fining the team $30 million, and issuing suspensions for owner Steve Ballmer, other team executives, and Leonard's adviser and uncle, Dennis Robertson. Leonard was...

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