The NBA on Wednesday suspended Los Angeles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer for one year as part of broader sanctions against the basketball team and two senior executives for violating the league’s salary cap avoidance rules related to star Kawhi Leonard and four companies that do business with the team.
Ballmer “knowingly” tried to help the 35-year-old find an off-court income opportunity worth millions of dollars and approved a business deal with the billionaire ex-Leonard. microsoft The CEO “knew that Aspiration (Partners) was a prerequisite to entering into an endorsement deal with Mr. Leonard,” the league said in a statement.
The Clippers were also fined $30 million, the largest fine in NBA history, and will be stripped of five first-round draft picks, one for each year starting in 2029.
According to the NBA, the Clippers and their staff will be subject to a compliance and monitoring program overseen by the league’s executive office.
Clippers operations manager Jillian Zucker was suspended without pay for one year, and basketball operations manager Lawrence Frank was suspended for six months without pay. Zucker made false and misleading statements to investigators, according to a summary of the investigation’s findings released Wednesday.
The league announced that an investigation into the Clippers by law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz “revealed a pattern of misconduct and multiple significant rule violations” by the organization, which had previously violated salary cap avoidance rules.
“The three individuals most responsible for the Clippers’ rule violations are Mr. Ballmer, Mr. Zucker and Mr. Frank,” Lipton said in Wachtel’s 36-page report.
Ballmer is the ninth richest person in the world, with a fortune of more than $152 billion, according to Forbes’ Real-Time Billionaires List.
The Clippers said in a statement that they “categorically reject the NBA’s findings.”
“We intend to vigorously challenge these findings and penalties through all available means and look forward to an ethical and fair arbitration process,” the team said.
Wachtel said in a summary of the investigation’s findings that the organization’s violations include “initiating off-court income opportunities” between the 35-year-old Leonard and four companies that do business with the team — Aspiration Partners, Boingo Wireless, Daktronics and Rockton Insurance — and facilitating endorsement deals with those companies for the seven-time NBA All-Star.
The Clippers also induced these companies to sign Leonard by soliciting business from the team, paying personal expenses to Leonard and his agents, and “failing to report unwarranted solicitation of off-court income opportunities made on Mr. Leonard’s behalf through then-business manager Dennis Robertson,” the summary states. Robertson is Leonard’s uncle.
Leonard was ordered to pay $700,000 to the league in connection with his own misconduct, which resulted from Robertson’s actions in pressuring the team for Leonard to earn money off the court and failing to repay payments from the Clippers for personal expenses.
The NBA banned Robertson from doing business or having any other association with the league’s teams, their affiliates, players or employees for five years.
The report comes nearly a year after the podcast Pablo Torre Finds Out launched a series of episodes alleging that the Clippers and Ballmer violated salary cap avoidance rules in their deal with now-bankrupt green energy finance company Aspiration Partners, which had a four-year, $28 million endorsement deal with Leonard. The podcast reported that the agreement was never made public and that Leonard did not perform any duties under the agreement.
“The NBA’s collective bargaining system for determining player compensation is a fundamental element of the game of basketball, overseen by the league for the benefit of its teams, players, and ultimately its fans,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said in a statement Wednesday.
“We are deeply disappointed in the flagrant violation of our rules and the organizational and leadership failures of the Clippers that led to this misconduct,” Silver said in a statement. “The severity of the penalty reflects the seriousness of the violation.”
Leonard said in a statement through his new agent: “Integrity and respect for the game are fundamental to who I am as a person. I accept full responsibility for the poor judgment by those close to me and regret the disruption this situation has caused to my fans and my family.”
“I entered into the contract and the agreement in question with the Clippers in good faith, was committed to fulfilling my obligations, and had no knowledge of anyone’s intent to circumvent the salary cap,” Leonard said in a statement.
Once the investigation is complete, it could pave the way for Leonard to part ways with the Clippers. A trade that would have sent Leonard to the Toronto Raptors, the team he played for before the Clippers, was put on hold until an investigation is completed this summer.
“Coming back to Toronto, I will focus on what I can control, close this chapter and move forward with a clean slate,” Leonard said.
In a statement, the Clippers said the report’s findings “are the result of a highly biased investigation that seeks to justify a predetermined narrative rather than facts or evidence.”
“What the league has told us privately differs from what we have publicly announced today and does not hold us to anything close to the standards set by Commissioner Silver at the beginning of the investigation to ensure fairness and accuracy,” the team said.
“We have cooperated fully and in good faith over the past year, and we will continue to fight just as hard to prove our innocence.”
