The NBA fined the Los Angeles Clippers $30 million and suspended owner Steve Ballmer for one year after finding the team systematically violated salary cap rules through fake endorsement agreements with Kawhi Leonard, according to a Wachtell Lipton investigation.
The league also stripped the Clippers of five first-round draft picks covering 2029 through 2033. Gillian Zucker, the Clippers president of business operations, was suspended for one year without pay. Lawrence Frank, president of basketball operations, received a six-month suspension without pay.
Leonard was ordered to pay $700,000. His uncle and business manager, Dennis Robertson, was banned for five years from engaging with NBA teams or their affiliates on behalf of any player or league personnel.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said he was "deeply disappointed by the flagrant violations" uncovered in the investigation.
The scheme centered on three companies—Boingo, Daktronics, and Lockton—that the Clippers "initiated, facilitated and induced" to sign Leonard to endorsement deals. In July 2020, Zucker connected Robertson with the companies. Leonard signed multi-year endorsement agreements with two of them that same month and with the third by August 2020. He began receiving payments by September 2020.
The three endorsement agreements totaled $18 million, all paid to Leonard by August 2021. The deals were flagged by investigators as having an "highly unusual nature" typical of salary cap circumvention schemes.
The Clippers said they plan to "vigorously challenge these findings and penalties through every avenue available" and characterized the investigation as "heavily biased" and designed to support a "predetermined narrative." The team was a prior offender of salary cap circumvention rules.
