The 2026 NBA playoffs are now nearly over, and the league has still not reached a conclusion on the ongoing cap-circumvention controversy. The Los Angeles Clippers were accused before the season even began, and some fans have already forgotten the whole ordeal.
But in a recent appearance on the Rich Eisen Show, ESPN insider Ramona Shelburne dropped a new update on when to expect a decision. Unsurprisingly, any formal announcement likely won’t come until after the Finals, but it could stretch on for even longer if necessary.
“They’ve been investigating forever and ever. I think the bar is quite high now because Pablo Torre won himself a Pulitzer for his investigation into that,” said Shelburne. “So they really have to make sure, they really have to get it right. There’s an investigation going on, but they’re not going to drop the results of this in the middle of the NBA playoffs; that’s such a huge distraction for the rest of the league. When nothing came out at the end of the season, I was like ‘Okay, I’ll talk to you in August.’ Who knows, maybe they’ll take even longer.”
Critics continue to wonder what the holdup is, but Shelburne says the investigation requires a lot of digging. Beyond the Aspiration deal itself, the league will look into other matters to confirm just how deep this goes.
“From what I can gather, I think it started with Aspiration, but the questions have expanded into a lot of other things. I know they did one investigation in 2019, and they closed that, but they said if new evidence comes up… They’re just digging and digging, re-interviewing people, and trying to find more people. It’s about who cooperates with the investigation. They don’t have subpoena power; they can’t get your phone records unless you work for the team. My sense is that they started getting a lot more cooperation in January. And then once you find one thing out, you start opening other doors. It’s a comprehensive investigation going on.”
The Aspiration timeline begins in September 2021, when Steve Ballmer’s LLC invested at least $48 million in the fraudulent tree-planting company. Just a few months later, Kawhi’s company, ‘KL2 Aspire LLC’, was created to manage the Aspiration endorsement funds. So, as Ballmer and other Clippers executives were bankrolling Aspiration behind the scenes, Leonard was getting paid for doing nothing in an unprecedented “no-show” endorsement deal. In total, he was set to earn $28 million from the company before they were finally caught and shut down.
If the NBA can prove that Ballmer knowingly used Aspiration as a front to pay Kawhi, the consequences would be devastating for the Clippers. Besides fines and the potential loss of draft picks, they could lose the superstar entirely if his contract gets voided.
Needless to say, there’s a lot at stake for the Clippers this summer. If found guilty, it could set them back years, and it would be a terrible look. So far, however, they’ve maintained their innocence, and it suggests that this whole ordeal could be a massive misunderstanding.
