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Investigative reporter Pablo Torre alleges NBA salary cap might have been circumvented.
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Published Sep 03, 2025 • 5 minute read
Kawhi Leonard of the L.A. Clippers handles the ball during Game 1 of the Western Conference playoffs against the Phoenix Suns.
Kawhi Leonard of the L.A. Clippers handles the ball during Game 1 of the Western Conference playoffs against the Phoenix Suns. Getty Images
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It has been a while, but Toronto Raptors legend Kawhi Leonard is back in the news for non-basketball reasons.
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Investigative reporter Pablo Torre, formerly a long-time writer with Sports Illustrated and ESPN, made his podcast debut with The Athletic on Wednesday with an episode titled Kawhi Leonard Signed a Secret $28M Deal. Steve Ballmer Funded a Fraud. We Followed the Money.
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The piece instantly created a buzz at a time that’s usually the quietest of the hoops off-season.
Torre and his team allege that Leonard got a notable extra perk from the Los Angeles Clippers in addition to the four-year, $176-million US contract he signed in August 2021. This was when Leonard re-signed with his hometown club after previously leaving Toronto for them fresh off the 2019 NBA title.
Torre alleges Leonard was given an additional $28 million through a shell company called “KL2 Aspire LLC” from Aspiration Partners, an environmental-based technology company.
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Nothing has been proven and the Clippers told Torre any assertion of wrongdoing or salary cap circumvention involving owner Steve Ballmer or the team is “provably false,” but Torre got seven former Aspiration Partners employees to speak to him and was even given a copy of the link between Aspiration Partners and KL2 Aspire LLC.
Aspiration Partners has gone bankrupt and the documentation listed KL2 Aspire LLC (Leonard is listed as the manager of the company) as being owed $7 million of the originally $28 million, which allegedly started being paid in $7-million increments in 2022.
A former Aspiration Partners employee from the finance department anonymously told Torre they were told Leonard was a “big player” and to not ask any questions about the deal with his company because it was allegedly done to circumvent the NBA’s salary cap.
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Ballmer, who has a net worth of north of $150 billion (Forbes currently lists him as the eighth-richest person in the world), was a significant investor in Aspiration Partners, which had plenty of other celebrity endorsers including Drake, Robert Downey Jr. and Doc Rivers, but the difference was the other celebrities made public endorsements of the company, whereas Torre found no evidence of Leonard ever doing that.
Leonard could have left the Clippers before signing the extension for similar money elsewhere so, if eventually proven, this would become a major blow to the Clippers — who likely would be punished extensively by the NBA.
The league never found any evidence of anything fishy when Leonard first left Toronto for Los Angeles in 2019 but, in the days following, the NBA world was speculating that perhaps the franchise with the richest owner that had made its presence known at nearly every Raptors game in 2018-19 with a representative seated courtside (which Leonard hilariously claimed he never even noticed) was engaging in one of the biggest full-court presses in history.
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At the time, it was speculated that Leonard’s uncle and chief advisor Dennis Robertson may not have been operating in a straightforward manner in dealing with the Raptors. As we wrote that July, “that’s the sense one gets having spent nearly a week here in Vegas and talking to a variety of league sources either from the Raptors or other organizations.”
Then-Raptors president Masai Ujiri was asked by a few reporters at the time whether Leonard had been up front during the negotiations and said while he was, hinted Robertson might not have been.
“Ha, either way I know what we’re dealing with here and I appreciate what the process was and I know free agency, I know how it works,” Ujiri said. “It’s not my first rodeo. You know things are going to go up and down. This was a different kind of free agency. It’s high stakes and we understood that.”
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As we wrote: “Those around the league believe Toronto did everything right, everything it could to convince Leonard that his long-term future should be as a Raptor. Sources say the team believed it was in it all the way until the start of the meeting with Leonard and his camp. At that point, sources say the thought was it was over.
“And here recall the use of ‘high stakes’ in Ujiri’s media appearance. Multiple sources here in the desert, where the entire NBA is assembled, said Uncle Dennis was asking for the moon, or something equivalent, from any pursuing franchise. Things Ujiri — and those above him — either couldn’t or wouldn’t offer. Things beyond just straight greenbacks.
“It’s here that we might point out that Clippers owner Steve Ballmer is worth somewhere around $50 billion US. We’ll put this as delicately as possible. Free agency and tampering in the NBA continues to spin out of control and it’s all but impossible to enforce gifts or promises to family members. There’s no evidence to suggest that happened here, just that it wouldn’t shock anyone in this day and age, given the deep pockets of some owners.”
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Again, nothing was proven then and these new allegations are of a different variety, with alleged extra payments seemingly going right to a Leonard-managed company, but NBA commissioner Adam Silver had to weigh in when Leonard and Paul George first joined the Clippers. Silver told media then that there is “work to do” in terms of cleaning up the free-agency process.
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[Former Raptors forward Kawhi Leonard poses with his uncle Dennis Robertson (left) as his mom holds his NBA MVP trophy after Toronto claimed the NBA title last month. (THE CANADIAN PRESS FILES)
Was Uncle Dennis a menace in former Raptor Kawhi Leonard's free-agency departure?](https://torontosun.com/sports/basketball/nba/toronto-raptors/was-uncle-dennis-a-menace-in-former-raptor-kawhi-leonards-free-agency-departure?utm_source=read-more)
2. [Toronto Raptors general manager Bobby Webster has added head of basketball operations to his resume now as well.
Raptors boss Bobby Webster reveals leadership style and key mentors before training camp](https://torontosun.com/sports/basketball/nba/toronto-raptors/bobby-webster-leadership-style-key-mentors-training-camp?utm_source=read-more)
This new story is not going to go away quickly. Other owners have long been wary of Ballmer’s immense wealth and how it could be wielded, but the Clippers say they’ve done nothing wrong and the NBA will likely need a lot of evidence of wrongdoing to bring down any punishment similar to what happened to the Minnesota Timberwolves years ago for salary cap circumvention.
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In that 1999-00 case, the Wolves signed Joe Smith, a former No. 1 overall selection, to three deals worth far more than his actual value while he was paid additional money under the table so they could more easily build a strong team around Kevin Garnett.
But a former employee spilled the beans and David Stern and the NBA responded by voiding Smith’s contract, fining the Wolves $3.5 million and taking away the team’s next five first-round picks, which might have cost them a championship.
If something like that happens again, the Clippers will be royally screwed. The team has the oldest roster in the league, has already traded its 2026 and 2028 first-rounders and is all-in in pursuit of the franchise’s first championship.
Keep your eyes on this one.
@WolstatSun
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