Steve Ballmer LA Clippers Kawhi Leonard
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Things just keep getting worse for Los Angeles Clippers owner Steve Ballmer in the ongoing saga of tree-planting company Aspiration and its alleged payments to Kawhi Leonard to circumvent the NBA salary cap.
Now, Ballmer is worth north of $150 billion according to the internet, so how bad can things really get for him?
However, they’re worse now than they were six months ago!
Former ESPN reporter Pablo Torre recently uncovered a purported scam to pay Leonard under the table through a shell company in order to compensate him outside of the bounds of the league’s salary cap. Now, according to a report from Colin Salao of Front Office Sports, 11 investors in the alleged shell company are now suing Ballmer over the alleged wrongdoing.
Aspiration Investors Sue Steve Ballmer Over Kawhi Leonard No-Show Job
The 133-page suit, which was first filed in June, before Torre’s report, did not initially name Ballmer. However, amid new reporting, the Clippers owner has been added to the filing.
“It served Ballmer’s interest in getting extra money to Leonard so he could circumvent the salary cap, beat out the competition and re-sign his team’s superstar player,” the lawsuit alleges. “Ballmer was complicit in and aided and abetted Sanberg’s fraud for his own self-serving purpose. Ballmer publicly endorsed Catona and infused over $50 million into the company. Absent Ballmer’s support, Catona could not have sustained the frauds set forth herein.”
The Catona in question is Catona Climate, which was formerly known as Aspiration.
There is, however, some good news for Ballmer in all this. NBA commissioner Adam Silver does not exactly sound dead set on getting to the bottom of the case, and even if he were, it doesn’t sound like Silver is prepared to bring the hammer down.
“I was only quasi-joking with someone earlier, when people talk about a smoking gun, that’s obviously circumstantial. It means the gun is still smoking. It must have been recently fired,” Silver said via Front Office Sports. “I’d say in the case of the league we have our investigators look at the totality of the evidence. I would be reluctant to act if there was a mere appearance of impropriety.”
Additionally, Silver stated that the league faces a significant burden of proof.
So, Ballmer could come out of this all slightly less rich. But hey, what’s a handful of million dollars among friends?