Kawhi Leonard’s alleged deal with Aspiration is raising serious red flags. In the weeks since Pablo Torre’s podcast first uncovered ties between the Clippers, Steve Ballmer, Leonard, and the now-defunct environmental company, no evidence has surfaced showing Kawhi ever did any work for the brand. Instead, agents around the league are blasting the reported $7 million annual payout as far beyond industry standards.
“There’s too much fire here, it’s not just smoke,” an agent told Joe Vardon. “Seven million (annually) for a no-show deal is ridiculous.”
There are many strange and suspicious details of Kawhi’s endorsement deal with Aspiration, but the actual number of the deal itself is enough to warrant serious investigation.
“An outlandish number,” said another player agent. “Typically, those deals are for somewhere between $500,000 and $1 million, depending on the size of the company, the market, etc.. And you can almost always see their work.”
The most damning detail against the Clippers is that Kawhi’s endorsement was essentially a “no-show” contract, meaning he got rewarded for doing nothing to promote or market the brand.
“The issue here isn’t the cost,” an agent added. “If you heard, hypothetically, that a Michael Jordan or a Kobe Bryant had a deal to endorse (a team sponsor), whatever it cost, would you bat an eye? The issue is services rendered, and is the team an investor in the companies giving the players contracts?”
Aspiration had been heavily involved with the Clippers recently, agreeing to sponsor their jerseys and arena for $300 million. Ballmer poured at least $50 million of his own money into the company, roughly matching up to Kawhi’s payout of $48 million.
In the wake of Aspiration’s failure, several ex-employees have stepped up to announce the illegal deal with Kawhi, claiming that it was always designed as a way to circumvent the salary cap. That’s also a paper trail that links inputs from Ballmer and Clippers executives to Kawhi Leonard’s regularly scheduled payments.
The entire ordeal isn’t just a bad look for the Clippers; it downright reeks of sketchy activity that warrants a swift and clear response from the NBA. As they investigate, we’ll likely uncover deeper truths behind the ongoing scandal, but no official judgment will be made until we have the full story.
For now, at least, the Clippers are guilty in the court of public opinion, and many are convinced action should be taken against them. With the details that have been revealed so far, there’s far too much evidence to ignore, but the burden of proof ultimately falls on the NBA to figure out what exactly happened and determine if illegal agreements were made that threaten the integrity of the game.
The Aspiration saga has already stained Kawhi Leonard’s reputation and dragged the Clippers into one of the NBA’s most alarming financial controversies in recent memory. Whether the league finds hard proof of wrongdoing or not, the optics are already disastrous, and $7 million a year for a no-show deal tied to the team’s owner is too much smoke for fans to simply dismiss. If the NBA wants to protect its credibility, the next steps in this investigation will be crucial.
